What's Past Is Prologue
by Valerie J
Summary: **COMPLETED** Written with AeroGirl. When a critical figure from Harm's past resurfaces, he is faced with some difficult realizations... and a choice.
1. Default Chapter

Title: "What's Past is Prologue"

Authors: AeroGirl and Valerie

Email: michaerogirl@hotmail.com, nw.jones@verizon.net

Websites: ; 

Rating: PG

Spoilers: "The Prisoner," "Death Watch," "Answered Prayers"

Summary: When a critical figure from Harm's past resurfaces, he is faced with some difficult realizations as well as a choice.

Disclaimer: Having two authors means twice the fun, but when it comes to character rights, twice nothing is still nothing.

Authors' Notes:

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From AeroGirl: Housekeeping stuff out of the way first. The story is set in the present (season eight), although there is no mention of Singer's current condition. Actually, Singer doesn't even get a cameo. (You're welcome.)

On a personal note – well, this was one highly entertaining experiment. I've never tried to write with a partner before, and I really started at the top, didn't I? It's truly frightening how much Valerie and I think alike sometimes – aero engineers of the fanfic world unite. This should have been difficult, probably, but instead it was a blast, and I think I'll be a better writer for it. Thanks, Val.

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From Valerie: You know, we're probably the _only_ two female aerospace engineers out there who are writing JAG fanfic... maybe any fanfic at all. I'm going to have to dub myself AeroGirl II or something. Anyway, I have to agree with AG—this was a blast. As for what I've learned from the experience, well, I've learned that it _is_ possible for me to write a story that's not umpteen-bizillion chapters long J AeroGirl manages to pack an incredible amount of plot into few words, without sacrificing quality of writing. Definitely something I want to learn. So, enjoy. We certainly had fun writing it.

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What's past is prologue; what to come

In yours and my discharge.

--The Tempest, by William Shakespeare

Chapter 1

She was just closing up her briefcase when the director knocked on the open door. 

"Sir," she greeted him automatically, her eyes straying to the file in his hand. "Is that my life?"

"For lack of a better word, yes." The older man stepped into the office and handed the folder to her. "We renewed your driver's license, passport, and Social Security card, as well as opened a bank account in your name with a little bit in there to get you started again." As he spoke, she inventoried the folder's contents, finding her identity cards as well as a brand new checkbook and various official notifications from the bank and government agencies.

She nodded. "Thank you." 

The director shrugged, the corners of his mouth curling upward. "All part of the package. This isn't the first time we've done this, you know."

That made her grin as a mixture of excitement and trepidation filled her. To finally be going back to her life...

A new thought struck her. "What about the Navy?"

This time his shrug was less encouraging. "It's not as easy to pull strings at the Pentagon. Their bureaucracy doesn't handle this kind of thing very well, so I guess you'll have to look into it once you're settled."

She chewed on her lip for a moment, her heart growing heavy with uncertainty. "I have a... friend who should be in the Navy's JAG Corps somewhere."

He nodded. "A lawyer's probably what you'll need. It helps to know someone."

She looked down at her shoes. Friend, she'd called him. The term was singularly insufficient to describe their relationship. She wondered how their reunion would play out. Would he feel betrayed? Hurt? Overjoyed? 

"Here's your plane ticket," the director went on, handing her the typical packet stamped with a familiar carrier's logo.

She fingered it, both relieved and overwhelmed by what it and the other papers in her hand signified. "Well, I guess I'd better head for the airport," she said after a moment. Despite the many doubts that plagued her, she knew she was doing what she needed to—for herself, her family, and her future.

The director gave her an odd smile. "I have trouble thinking of you by anything other than your cover name, so..." He stuck out his hand. "Safe trip, Alison. Good luck."

She gave him a genuine smile as she returned the handshake. "Thank you, sir."

#

Harm breezed into work just in time to catch Mac headed the other way, briefcase in hand. They met just shy of the doors fronting the bullpen, a gentle collision that produced a brilliant cascade of sparks. Mac rocked back a half step, cocking her head in an expression Harm had learned meant she would rather have avoided him at that particular moment. He bit back a sigh. Why was it that every time they tried to have a conversation about the future, it ended up becoming an argument over who was responsible for the past?

"Morning, Mac," he said with forced cheer, holding out a hand in an effort to corral his partner and keep her from slipping past without some kind of acknowledgement. 

She flashed him a look of annoyance. "Harm, I'm due in court."

"And that's reason enough not to say good morning to your best friend?"

She bit her lip. "Good morning. Now get out of my way."

After a moment he stepped aside, allowing her to pass. Casting a resentful glance over her shoulder, Mac brushed past him and pushed through the bullpen doors, her stride swift and angry. 

He shook his head as he turned away. Maybe she was just in a hurry. Reading Mac's emotions was not on his list of well-honed skills. And getting her to open up about it when she was mad at him fell even lower on that list.

Suck it up, Rabb. There's nothing you can do about it right now. Maybe, in a couple of days, they'd be able to talk about it. He would just have to live with the sick knot in his gut until then.

He wandered back to his office, intent on catching up on some of the paperwork that seemed to reproduce at an alarming rate when left alone on his desk for any length of time. He managed to distract himself with work for almost two solid hours before something tickled his radar, making him raise his head and look beyond the confines of his office.

To his surprise he saw Mac standing in the middle of the bullpen, dressed in casual civilian clothing and looking around like she'd forgotten something but couldn't quite remember what it was. As he watched, Bud passed by, folder in one hand and cane in the other.

"Good morning, ma'am," Bud said, his eyes never leaving the folder he was perusing.

Mac just stared at him.

Bud paused. "Aren't you supposed to be in court this morning?" he asked, glancing at her.

Her mouth opened soundlessly, then snapped shut.

Harm rose from his desk, concerned by the odd behavior. She _was_ supposed to be in court and Admiral Morris was going to have her butt in a sling if she didn't have a good reason for not being there. He headed toward his partner.

As he approached, Harriet joined her husband. "Good morning, ma'am," she told Mac with a bright smile, which immediately turned curious. "Did you change your hair? It's cute."

Harm hadn't really registered the difference until Harriet said something, but Mac's hair _was _different. A little darker and curled under a bit, like she'd worn it back when they'd first met.

Mac's hand immediately went to her hair, fingers twining in the dark locks in a girlish gesture Harm had never seen her use.

Truly concerned now, but not wanting to further provoke his partner given her mood this morning, he opted for a lighthearted approach.

"Did you decide to play hooky from court today, Marine?"

Mac whirled at the sound of his voice, and on seeing him, her face lit with a dazzling smile of joy and relief. "Harm!"

His brow dipped in confusion for the complete one-eighty her behavior had taken. "Yes?" he asked warily. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a warning voice had begun to chatter an indecipherable message of caution. 

Mac's face fell by degrees. She stared at him with a pained, confused expression. "Harm, it's me."

Harm stared at her as the warnings in his head intensified. That wasn't Mac's voice. It was too high, too soft. It was a voice he knew by heart, one that sometimes still floated through his dreams, taunting him with could-have-beens.

In an instant Harm's world shattered, demolishing his heart with it. He watched, stunned, as everything he'd believed to be true unraveled before his eyes, all because of this woman. Sagging against the corner of a nearby desk, he managed to choke out her name.

"Diane."


	2. 2

Chapter 2

Activity in the bullpen ground to a near-halt. The staff pretended to be occupied with other duties, but everyone was curiously monitoring the bizarre encounter taking place in the middle of the room. While none of them had a clue what was going on, the complete and utter shock written on the features of the normally unflappable commander had made an immediate impact.

Bud was the only one with the knowledge necessary to figure it out, and once he had, he managed to ignore the apparent impossibility of it all and move quickly. 

"Sir, ma'am," he said quietly, breaking through the powerful, tense gaze the two shared.

Diane blinked at him, the memory returning after a moment. "Uh, it's good to see you, Ens—ah, Lieutenant Roberts."

"I guess I can say the same, ma'am, although I'm really confused right now."

"You're not the only one," Harm echoed in a low, sardonic voice.

Diane's gaze returned to the commander's, once again locking with his in a palpable connection. 

"I know this is a shock, Harm—"

The commander's eyebrow rose in understated vehemence. "A _shock_?"

Bud knew that tone of voice. He shoved his own overwhelming curiosity away in the interest of protecting his superior and friend from broadcasting what would undoubtedly be a difficult conversation.

"Sir," he interjected quickly, "wouldn't you rather use your office to ... uh, catch up?"

Harm straightened, his typical cool demeanor snapping back into place. Mostly. 

"Good idea, Bud." He gestured for Diane to follow as he led the way to his office. Once there, he opened the door for her, then closed it securely once they were both inside.

No sooner had the door clicked shut than the bullpen began to hum with murmurs. Harriet studied her husband's face and read something in it that she'd never seen before. Taking a guess, she asked tentatively, "That wasn't Colonel Mackenzie, was it?"

He shook his head. "No."

That left only one explanation, and her eyes widened. "Was it—?" 

"I think so."

Sturgis wandered into the bullpen then, noting the commotion with a puzzled expression. 

"Stand down, folks," he commented, coming over to join the two flabbergasted lieutenants. "What's the story in here?"

Bud hesitated, knowing how wrong the explanation would sound. "Sir, Commander Rabb had a fairly strong reaction to a visitor, and people are a little confused about it."

Sturgis's gaze flicked over to his friend's closed door, the puzzled crease between his eyes deepening. "Why, who was it?"

Bud gave him a helpless look. "That's the thing, sir. It was—I mean, it is—I don't even know if she has a rank anymore, but... Diane Schonke is here."

Immediately, Sturgis's eyes flashed, and he lowered his voice. "That isn't funny, Lieutenant."

"Sir, you don't have to tell _me_ that." Bud's response was uncharacteristically forceful. "I was the one who found her body."

The commander stared at him for a moment, then shook his head. "I was at her funeral," he said distantly. "My father did the service, for God's sake..."

Bud braced himself for his next question. "Sir, not to be disrespectful in any way, but was there by any chance a closed casket?"

#

Inside the office, Harm just looked at Diane, still trying to reconcile two very different images in his head. She was here, standing in front of him with the same bright eyes and glowing presence he'd tried so hard not to forget: but she was also lying on that stretcher back in Norfolk, too, cold and lifeless. He'd been there, damn it. He'd seen her, touched her, even had thoughts of kissing her goodbye.

And yet, he couldn't chalk this situation up to a madman's twisted scheme or a concussion-induced hallucination. She was here. There was no getting around it.

"I'm sorry," Diane began before he could convince his mind to formulate a proper question. "Before I try to explain all this, I want to say that. I know how badly I must be freaking you out right now, and—"

"Oh, you do, do you?" Something warned him that lashing out at her wasn't a good idea, but the shock of it all had paralyzed his sense of tact. "Do you know how badly you freaked me out when I opened up that body bag six years ago, too?"

This time, she was the one who went white. "You were there?" she whispered.

"It was my _case_!" At the horror and guilt in her dark eyes, his anger cooled somewhat, replaced by more confusion. What else didn't she know? What the hell was going _on_ here?

"You were dead," he told her flatly, his voice beginning to waver. "I know what death looks and feels like, and trust me, you fit the profile. Now you come to me after six years—six _years_—and tell me that it was faked?"

Her lip trembled, but she held her ground. "Not entirely. I really was shot by that creep Holbarth. What happened afterward is something that I didn't have a whole lot of control over until after I recovered, and by then..." Her eyes pleaded with him for understanding. "I'll tell you everything. I promise. Just please don't lock me out of your life. Not until you've heard me out. There's so little left of the life I remember, and I've spent so much time wondering what I'd do if I could see you again..."

"So have I," Harm admitted, his voice barely audible. 

Impulsively, Diane stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his neck. After a moment of awkwardness, he closed his arms around her, evoking a long-buried memory, and he knew he couldn't just push her away.

She stepped back after a few seconds, looking away. "I probably shouldn't have done that."

Harm braced his hands on the desktop behind him. "I'm not sorry you did. But, Diane—" Even saying her name again felt strange. "—I'm going to need some time to work through all this in my head, and I don't know how long it's going to take."

"I know. I'm not going to ask you to go back in time. I just want—" She sighed. "I _need_ your help. Whatever happens as a result, I'll accept."

"Okay." Some of the tension in his frame eased, and he looked at her with something akin to a smile. "You look good."

She smiled. "You, too. Older, of course."

He rolled his eyes. "Thanks a lot."

"I meant it kindly." Her scolding grin brought up a score of memories. "More secure—maybe even wiser—in both good ways and bad." A shadow fell across her face. "I suppose I'm responsible for more of the bad than the good."

He wasn't sure how to respond to that, so he chose to stay silent until she spoke again.

"Who did you think I was?"

Harm froze. "What?"

"When you first saw me, you called me 'Marine'—?"

__

Oh, Lord. "That's, um, complicated."

#

At approximately the same time, Mac came striding through the bullpen, a woman on a mission. No more messing around. If that self-centered jetjock happened to be in his office, he wasn't getting out until she could get her point of view through his thick skull.

Bud and Sturgis both moved to head her off. 

"Ma'am, this isn't a good time."

She didn't break stride. "It never is, Bud."

Sturgis planted himself in front of her and placed a gentle restraining hand on her arm. "Mac, trust me, you'd be hard-pressed to pick a worse time."

She glanced down at the hand on her sleeve. "Knock it off, Sturgis. Let him prepare his own defense, all right?"

"It's not about that, Mac." Something in his voice caught her attention. A quiet reserve that said she could do real damage here if she wasn't careful.

She paused, staring into his dark eyes. Sturgis was a sensitive man, and a cautious one. A warning from him wasn't to be taken lightly. And yet...

And yet. Harm couldn't hide behind his well-intentioned friend. With a tight smile, she sidestepped Sturgis and headed toward Harm's office.

Behind her, the two men exchanged helpless looks, then turned smartly on their heels and made haste in opposite directions. They, like everyone who worked at JAG headquarters for any length of time, knew when to get out of the line of fire.

Mac opened her partner's door without knocking—and walked into possibly the most surreal experience of her life.


	3. 3

Chapter 3

Mac wasn't sure what she'd expected to find in her thickheaded partner's office, but another woman, honestly, wasn't very high on her list. They were past that—or so she'd thought. But the way the woman stood, hovering just within the boundary that defined Harm's personal space, branded her as something other than a business contact. His body language, too, shouted that this was a woman with whom he was intimate... if not entirely comfortable.

Mac gripped the doorknob until her knuckles turned white. _This_ was what Sturgis didn't want her to interrupt? 

Harm's head jerked up at her entrance, his face betraying surprise, guilt, and a kind of shell-shocked emptiness that alarmed her even through her anger.

"Mac—"

Whatever followed her name dissolved into an indistinguishable buzz as the woman with Harm turned around. Mac found herself staring at a mirror image of herself. A flesh and blood woman wearing her face, which paled in shock even as Mac's jaw sagged open. They stared at each other in stunned silence.

Harm finally broke the stalemate. He cleared his throat, sounding acutely uncomfortable. "Diane Schonke... meet Sarah Mackenzie." He gestured to each in turn. "Mac, this is Diane."

__

Diane. The name jolted Mac all the way down to her toes. 

"You're supposed to be dead," she blurted before either courtesy or good sense could reassert itself. 

Diane turned a pleading look on Harm. "I don't understand..." she managed.

Harm shrugged helplessly.

Finally, Mac wrestled herself under some kind of control. She closed her mouth, moistening her lips as she crossed the office, and extended her hand toward the other woman.

"Hello, Diane. Harm's told me a lot about you."

Diane stared at her hand as if it might suddenly turn into a snake. The moment stretched until Diane hesitantly extended her arm. Mac had a strange thought—wondering if she and Diane might not spontaneously combust when they touched, as if the two of them couldn't exist in the same universe. She twitched, resisting the impulse to snatch her hand back. Then Diane's hand closed on her own, smooth-skinned and a touch clammy. Her grip was weak, feminine.

They separated quickly, still staring, though Mac had the distinct feeling Diane was reeling even more thoroughly than herself. But then, Diane hadn't had any forewarning.

Only then did Mac remember the third member of their bizarre trio. Her head snapped up, centering on her partner's face. 

"Harm?" She didn't need to say more than his name to convey the many levels of her concern. After all these years, and after all the hurt Diane's death had caused him...

His ever-changeable eyes, at the office usually blue in reflection of the navy blue uniform, had clouded to gray. He gave a minute shake of his head, his eyes pleading with her to let it go, at least for now.

Unable to tear her gaze away, she gestured toward the closed door at her back. "I should—I should probably go now. Harm, don't forget we have a meeting with Master Chief Zonne to go over his appeal at 1600." That was a couple of hours from now, but she'd needed something... official to say.

He gave her another nod and a lightning-quick smile that didn't go near his eyes. "I'll be there."

"All right, then." She mustered a pleasant expression for Diane, not knowing what else she could possibly say, and rushed out.

The door swung shut, and Diane looked up at Harm, her face registering the same kind of shock he'd worn only minutes before. "Did I imagine that, or did it really happen?" she finally asked.

"Imagine how I felt when I first met her. You'd only been gone maybe six months, and for weeks I was doing double-takes every time she walked into the room."

__

Obviously you got over that, she almost said, noting the familiarity the two officers had shared even in that brief, awkward exchange. But common sense quickly prevailed, and instead she asked, "You've been colleagues since then?"

He nodded, his expression neutral. "And close friends."

"Am I allowed to ask how close?"

His tone grew sharp. "I don't know if you and I are in a place right now where I want to discuss that."

Hurt flashed in her eyes, but to her credit, she didn't take offense. "I understand. I only ask because the reason I came here first is that I need legal assistance to get my life back in order, and I was hoping you'd help me. It's going to take a while to explain the whole story, so if you intend to turn around and relay it all to her, I figured I might as well get it over with and tell you both at once. Maybe she'd be willing to help, too."

"I can't speak for her, Di." The nickname slipped out almost unconsciously, and it brought a hint of a wistful smile to her lips. "I'll ask, but neither of us can really spare any duty hours. Unless you're somehow still in the Navy."

"I'm not. That's what I need assistance with."

"Then it'll have to wait until this evening. Do you, um, do you have somewhere to stay?" That didn't seem like quite the right question, but what precisely was one supposed to say to a person who'd recently returned from the grave?

"I have money. I got a hotel room and a rental car for the time being."

"Then come to my apartment tonight at 1900."

"Are you still on Columbus Avenue?"

He shook his head. "I moved away from there years ago. Nicer apartment, but a worse neighborhood." He scribbled his address down on the back of a business card. "I'll ask Mac to come, too, and we can get started on clearing all this up."

"Thank you." Relief was evident in her voice. She reached out to take the card from him, and he willed himself not to react as their fingers brushed.

A sudden thought occurred to him. "Have you been home yet?"

She hesitated, recognizing his meaning. "Not yet. I guess I was hoping that maybe you'd be willing to call my dad—you know, to prepare him a little."

Her wording didn't escape his notice. "Then you know?"

She sighed. "They didn't tell me until a week or two after it happened, but yes, I know. They sent me her obituary—it said that she was buried next to her daughter." She shook her head sadly. "Life's so bizarre sometimes."

Harm wanted to tell her that he'd spoken to Michael Schonke at Ellen's funeral, and that he'd seen a man utterly devastated by loss; first his daughter, then his wife. He wanted to tell her that she bore responsibility for some of the pain her father felt, the pain he himself had felt. But that wouldn't solve anything, and he suspected that she was already well aware of it. So he said nothing.

Holding up his card gratefully, Diane moved toward the door. Impulsively, he called after her. "Diane—who's 'they'? And while I'm at it, how exactly did you get in here?"

In response, she reached into her purse and handed him two ID cards. "Go ahead and hold onto them. I can't see myself needing them anytime soon."

She disappeared through the doorway, and he looked down at the cards. One had been issued by a company named Reliant Technologies. The second bore the logo of the National Security Agency. Both were in the name of Alison Marie Markham, and both bore Diane's picture. 

Shaking his head, he followed her out into the bullpen. For damage control, he told himself. The staff had witnessed enough to send the scuttlebutt flying. It would probably be good to introduce Diane to a few people before she got away. And that way, a little voice in the back of his mind told him, he'd have multiple witnesses that she'd really been there.

Bud was standing at the corner of his wife's desk, looking remarkably busy with the file in his hands. Harm caught up to Diane and, gently taking her elbow, steered her in that direction. 

"Come meet some of my friends, Di."

Both Bud and Harriet looked up at their approach. Harriet studied Diane with frank curiosity, then slowly shook her head.

"Honey, I'm sorry I didn't believe you," she told her husband.

Bud shrugged. "That's okay, Harriet. It's one of those too-weird-to-be-true things that happens sometimes."

Diane glanced up at Harm, many thoughts spinning behind her eyes. She seemed to be taking in just how strange the situation was now that she'd met Mac. The image of Diane and Mac shaking hands—mirrors of each other even in their expressions of shock—wasn't one he would easily forget. For many years he'd tried to tell himself the uncanny resemblance was as much in his mind as anything else, but seeing them together shattered that bit of wishful thinking. 

He shoved his reflections to the back of his mind. "Diane, you know Lieutenant Roberts. He came to work for us after he finished his tour on the Seahawk." The two traded nods and smiles.

"And this is his wife, Lieutenant Harriet Sims."

Harriet stuck out her hand with a bright smile. "It's nice to meet you, ma'am," she said.

"And you." Diane returned the smile with one of her own. It was a far more open expression than Mac's when meeting someone new.

"Colonel Mackenzie, I don't recall giving you the day off." 

The foursome had been so involved in their conversation that none of them had noticed the Admiral's approach. He stood a few paces behind Diane, his hands clasped behind his back, his expression diffident.

All four spun to face Chegwidden.

"Uh, sir—" Harm began.

"Sir, this isn't—" Bud said at the same time.

Diane stepped forward, her soft voice cutting across both of theirs. "Sir, I'm not Colonel Mackenzie," she told the Admiral.

Chegwidden blinked at that. Then he turned his head toward Mac's office. Harm knew the exact moment he spied the colonel through her blinds. He turned back, pinning Diane with a stern stare.

"So who are you, then, Ms.—?" 

"Schonke, sir. Diane Schonke. I used to be a lieutenant in the Navy, but... not anymore."

Chegwidden's face was hard to read. "What happened?"

"I died, sir."

He eyed her for a long moment. "You obviously didn't do a very good job of it."

A step behind her, Harm nearly choked. 

"Uh, no, sir." Diane was starting to look exceedingly uncomfortable. "It's a long story, sir."

Harm decided he'd better step in before the situation got any worse. "Diane went to the Academy with Sturgis and me, Admiral."

Diane's head swung around in surprise. "Sturgis is here? I thought—"

He shrugged fractionally. "It's been a long time. Things have changed."

Meanwhile, Chegwidden had turned a less-than-happy stare on his senior attorney. Harm managed not to blanch.

"Now that I think about it, I seem to recall you investigating Lieutenant Schonke's murder, Commander."

Harm nodded, his throat dry. "Yes, sir." Though Holbarth had met his fate falling off a pier, the Admiral was perceptive enough to have realized the truth immediately; that Harm had had every intention of killing the man himself. It was something Harm was ashamed to admit, and he suspected the Admiral considered it a black mark on his character, if not his record.

The Admiral chewed his lip for a moment, then turned away. He turned back almost immediately, as if a thought had just occurred to him.

"The CIA didn't have anything to do with this, did they?" he asked Diane.

She gave him an odd look, but one didn't question an admiral. "No, sir."

"Apparently, it was NSA," Harm supplied.

Chegwidden nodded, looking just a bit disappointed. "Well, I suppose there had to be something Agent Webb isn't responsible for." 

On the heels of that cryptic statement, he returned to his office. Diane gave Harm a questioning look. He just shook his head.

"Don't ask."


	4. 4

Chapter 4

Inside the sanctuary of her office, Mac had collapsed into a chair, shaken to her very foundation. She remembered well the chill that had run through her when she'd stumbled upon that picture five years ago, a mirror image of herself in a Naval Academy uniform. Actually seeing the woman in the flesh, looking into unfamiliar eyes that stared out at her from her very own face ... the word 'unnerving' seemed woefully inadequate, but it was all she had.

__

You're exaggerating, some rational compartment of her mind pointed out. _You're not identical. It's just an extremely eerie similarity ... made all the more so by the fact that she's supposed to be freaking _dead_!_

She could still feel the stab of anguish that had resulted each time her partner had given her a look meant for someone else. It had faded with time, but now it seemed as if that anguish was soon to become a constant presence.

And if it could unravel her so effectively, what must it be doing to Harm?

There was a soft knock on her door, and the subject of her concerns stuck his head into her office, looking lost. "May I come in, or do you want—"

"No, come in. Please."

Harm closed the door behind him and stood in front of her desk. "You okay?"

In this case, the right answer was not the truthful one. "Sure," she said, pasting on a calm demeanor. "What about you?"

The helplessness that flickered across his features worried her further. "I don't know."

Mac rose from her desk and came around to sit on the corner closest to him. "Harm, you _saw_ her body. Didn't you? I mean, if I have yet another twin out there—"

"It was her." The quiet vehemence of his reply convinced her not to question. "I think I'm angry, and I'm trying not to be, but... I just don't know." He held up Diane's NSA badge for her to examine. "She says she needs legal help, and that she'll explain it all to us. I told her to come to my place at 1900."

Mac tried unsuccessfully to read his expression. "Us?"

"If you're okay with it. I know it'll be extremely weird for you. I should probably fill Sturgis in, so I'll ask him to come along, if that helps at all."

It didn't, since she knew the three classmates could easily go off on a nostalgic side trip and leave her in the dust. But that wasn't the point. "I'll be okay with it if you want me to be," she said carefully.

At that, Harm almost smiled. "I want you to be there," he said softly. "You've always been good at locating my sanity when I misplace it."

In spite of the surreal situation, Mac was warmed by the statement, and she gave him a wry grin. "You realize how close I was to throttling you earlier, right?"

He winced. "I know. We have a conversation to finish."

"It can wait. At least until after you've recovered from the shock of this whole deal."

"That could be a while," he muttered, half to himself. Abruptly, though, he straightened up, as if summoning his confidence. "Anyway, we've got a meeting, don't we?"

"We do. I'll meet you in the conference room."

"We're going to work this out, Mac. I'm not sure how, but when it's all said and done, all this is going to make sense, and things are going to be all right."

She smiled bravely. "I know."

That wasn't the truth, either.  


#

Harm had been pacing the confines of his apartment, occasionally wiping his palms on the rough denim of his jeans, when the first knock came. He whirled, hands seizing into fists that he had to force to unclench as he crossed to the door. He reached for the doorknob, then paused.

__

Time to put on your game face, Hammer, he told himself. Grabbing the knob, he yanked it open. Sturgis stood in the hallway, his jacket balled uncomfortably in his hands.

Harm couldn't help the sigh of relief that escaped him. 

Sturgis flashed a smile. "I figured you wouldn't want to be alone with either of the ladies yet."

Harm wondered how much he was supposed to read into that statement, then decided to drop it. The last thing he needed at this point was to second-guess an all around good guy like Sturgis.

"Thanks." He stepped back to allow Sturgis to enter, then turned toward the kitchen. "Can I get you something to drink?"

"I'm fine." Sturgis wandered inside while Harm ensconced himself behind the bulwark of his counter. He had a large pot on the stove. 

"What's cooking?" Sturgis asked.

Harm glanced at the covered pot. "Vegetable soup."

"I didn't realize this was a dinner thing."

"It's not. The soup won't be ready for hours. I just... needed to chop things." Harm shrugged uncomfortably at the admission. 

Sturgis chuckled and leaned his elbows on the counter. "Therapeutic vegetable massacre?"

Harm snorted in short-lived amusement. "Something like that." 

They fell silent. Sturgis watched with interest, whether real or feigned, as Harm peeked under the pot's lid, then puttered about with a dishcloth, cleaning.

"Did you and Diane end up dating?" Sturgis asked suddenly. 

Harm turned, his stomach twisting at the memories. 

His old friend watched him sympathetically. "I know you two were only friends at the Academy, but I'd heard some rumors after that—" He shrugged. "You and I didn't cross paths for a while and then... well, Diane's funeral didn't seem like the place to indulge my curiosity."

Harm braced himself against the counter as resurrected hurt rose to the surface. 

"Diane took leave... after my crash." He stared at the countertop, watching it blur in his vision. "She just... showed up one day, with a suitcase in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other, and said she'd come to cheer me up."

"Champagne?" He could hear the note of curiosity in Sturgis' voice.

Harm nodded. "To celebrate my 'triumphant return to the air,' she said." His voice broke on the second-to-last syllable. He gripped the edge of the counter until it cut into his fingers. "Until that moment, it hadn't even _occurred _to me that I might get back into an airplane—any airplane. Diane considered it a foregone conclusion." He straightened abruptly. "She was just like that. In less than five seconds, she upended my entire world, Sturgis."

"Sounds like all she did was turn it right side up again."

Harm ran a hand through his hair, feeling the newly trimmed stubble on the back of his neck. Mac had a thing about his hair when it was freshly cut. Every chance she got, she'd run her fingertips across those short hairs and grin impishly. It was one of his favorite expressions.

Shaking his head sharply, Harm forced himself to reorient his thought. He was terrified of the idea that he might get Mac and Diane mixed up somehow. "She did. I'm not sure I would have made it through the review board or rehab without her." He paused as the memories washed over him. "Somewhere in there, we stopped being _just friends_... but it was never official."

Sturgis regarded him for a moment. "'Official' as in...?"

Harm looked away. "Exclusive." He waved a hand vaguely. "I was here in Washington, she was in San Diego or deployed. We never connected as often as we wanted to, but when we did..." He looked away. "I guess we were too young and stupid to realize what we had while we had it. And then one day..." He snapped his fingers sharply. "It was gone, just like that."

For a moment, the gulf of anguish that lived perpetually in the back of Harm's mind threatened to rise up and swallow him, but he fought it back. He wasn't sure how long it took, but when he finally came back to himself he found Sturgis staring off into the distance, his expression profoundly sad.

He didn't get to ask about it, though, as another knock sounded at the door. Sturgis' expression cleared immediately as he turned toward the sound. "Do you want me to get it?" he asked.

"Yeah, if you would." Harm gave his friend a grateful look.

"Care to guess who it'll be?" Sturgis asked lightly as he walked toward the door.

Harm checked his watch, which read 1900 exactly. "It's Mac."

Sturgis opened the door. Mac raised one hand in a jerky wave, a strained smile appearing and disappearing in the blink of an eye. "Hi, Sturgis." She was dressed in chocolate brown slacks and a deep red sweater with a swoop neck. A slender gold chain decorated her throat. From the kitchen, Harm watched her, struck as always by her unconscious beauty.

Sturgis ushered Mac inside, his warm bass voice filling up the awkward silence. They walked over to the barstools lining the back of the counter. Mac tossed her jacket across the back of her usual chair and plopped her purse beneath it. Harm set a bottled water down in front of her. Their eyes met across the counter, and something inside Harm unexpectedly loosened. 

"Hey, Mac." He smiled a real smile, happy to see her no matter what the circumstances.

She picked up the water bottle, twisted it open, and drank. "Hi, yourself." Her brief smile was both shy and warm.

A knock at the door shattered their rapport.

"I'll get it," Sturgis said quickly. He trotted dutifully to the door. Harm heard him greet Diane, and her subdued answer. On the far side of the counter, Mac turned to watch, her elbows braced against the edge. Sturgis stepped back, allowing Diane to enter. Harm blinked in surprise. Diane wore jeans, but her turtleneck was a deep red—the same color as Mac's.

Mac straightened abruptly as Diane walked into the room. The two women stared at each other. Then Diane raised one hand to shake a finger in Mac's direction.

"You know, I shouldn't be surprised at that. Red is my best color."

Mac stared at her, mouth working soundlessly.

Diane pressed her lips together, a flush rising in her cheeks. "Um... yeah. Listen, Colonel—"

"You can call me Mac." From behind, Harm couldn't read Mac's expression, but he could see the tension in her shoulders.

Diane nodded. "Okay. Mac. This is going to sound really strange, but would you mind if we found a mirror somewhere? I think I need to see us side-by-side before it drives me completely nuts."

To Harm's surprise, Mac nodded. "Me, too." She gestured to Diane. "Come on, there's one back here." As the men watched in bemusement, she led the way toward Harm's bedroom.

When they were gone, Sturgis turned to look at Harm with a faint expression of horror.

"What?" Harm asked.

"I'm just hoping you don't have a secret fantasy about twins."

#

Side by side, the two women stared into the bathroom mirror.

"My hair is a little darker," Diane said after a moment. Mac wondered if the relief she heard in her voice was real or just her own projection. She also chose not to mention the fact that she highlighted her hair.

"I'm a little taller," Mac added.

Diane looked down. "No, I think that's just the shoes." 

Mac followed her gaze and had to agree. Diane had on casual sneakers versus her own boots. "You're 5'9"?"

"Yeah."

"Me, too."

They stared at their combined reflection. Diane blinked first.

"I keep thinking the weirdness will go away, y'know?" She gave Mac a rueful look.

Mac sighed. "I guess we're just going to have to get used to it." She paused, then forced herself to go on. "I used to wear my hair like that." She indicated the loose, swept-under curl that rested on Diane's shoulders. 

Diane turned to look at her directly. "What made you change it?"

"Harm—" she blurted, then shook her head. "No. He didn't make me change it." She couldn't meet the other woman's eyes. "He just—I never knew who he was seeing when he looked at me. And then when I saw a picture of you, I understood why."

Diane stared at her for several long minutes, absently nibbling at her lower lip as she did. "Can I—can I ask you something before we go back out there? About Harm," she hurried to add.

Mac's gut clenched. "Okay." 

"Is he... happy being a JAG? I was never sure." She shrugged uncomfortably. "He always said he loved trial law, but next to flying..." She straightened. "I saw he's wearing his wings again. He swore he wouldn't, but I always believed... eventually..."

Mac stared at her, realizing for the first time just how much Diane had missed. And for the first time since their bizarre meeting, she felt a ray of hope.

She found herself smiling. "Yes, I believe he's where he wants to be." He'd come back to JAG, after all.

As if her answer had lifted a weight from Diane's shoulders, the other woman nodded and turned back to the mirror. Mac's gaze followed and they once again studied their oh-so-similar features.

"You weren't by chance adopted, were you?" Diane cocked her head to the side, her expression quizzical.

Mac snorted. "Nope. You?"

"No." Diane heaved a sigh. "It was worth a try, though."


	5. 5

Chapter 5

Harm all but leapt up from the couch when Diane and Mac reentered the room. He'd forced himself to sit down so that he wouldn't pace restlessly around the apartment, but he'd only succeeded in bottling up all his nervous energy and turning himself into a tightly coiled human spring.

"So," he began, with levity that was obviously and painfully false. "Did you find any differences, or are we going to have to issue name tags?"

Mac lifted an eyebrow. "Well, since none of you knows where my tattoo is…"

Sturgis cleared his throat. "Maybe we should name you Thing 1 and Thing 2, like in the Dr. Seuss books."

"I will not answer, Sam I Am," Diane promptly responded, eliciting a muted laugh from the others. Quickly, though, the room fell silent, and Diane drew a deep breath. "Okay, this isn't going to get any easier if I keep stalling, so I guess I'll just jump right into it. You all might as well get comfortable."

Mac waited uncertainly to see where Harm sat before choosing her own seat. Part of her wanted to sit down right next to him, clearly marking her territory, but she just wasn't sure how far her territory extended at the moment. He took the chair, though, leaving her little choice but to share the couch with Sturgis. Instead of taking the desk chair, Diane sat down on the floor, tucking her legs up underneath her.

"Let's start with what you already know. The night I was shot, I was going ashore to file a complaint against Commander Holbarth for refusing to address my charges of harassment. But that wasn't the only reason I left the ship. I also had a meeting set up with an agent from NSA, to discuss the position they'd recently offered me. They needed someone with my cryptology skills for a long-term mission in Southeast Asia, and they contacted me about a month before the _Seahawk_ cruise ended."

She'd only begun this confession, but already Harm was stinging. Sensing his reaction, Diane rushed ahead. "I didn't have any intention of keeping that from you, Harm. It would have been the first topic of discussion that weekend, regardless of the sensitivity of the information. And honestly, I hadn't completely decided whether I was going to take the job. Until Holbarth stepped in and made that decision for me."

"He really did shoot you," Sturgis said, for clarification. Diane nodded, eyes cold, and her fingers touched an area just under her collarbone.

"If my sweater was a little more like Mac's, I'd show you the scar. He must have followed me to my car—I don't remember a lot of it. I didn't even know it was him until I saw the updated casefile a couple of years later." Her gaze flicked back to Harm, wanting to question him about that, but his hardened stare told her that now wasn't the time. "But just after it happened, my NSA contact came looking for me, and he called in a team of agency paramedics who kept me from bleeding to death. The agent in charge had to make a fast decision, and he decided that the opportunity to tie up some loose ends was too good to pass up. So they stabilized me, slowed my heart rate enough to fool whoever found me—"

"That would be Bud Roberts," Mac broke in. Diane's eyes widened, but she continued.

"—and switched their ambulance for a coroner's truck, and that was that. There were agents all over the place, pretending to be medical examiners or NCIS investigators, so they were always hovering around enough to keep any of the real investigators from looking too closely."

"I didn't want to look too closely," Harm said in a low voice, not looking at any of them. "As it was, five seconds after I saw you, I was already on the edge of the dock throwing up."

"They never told me you were there," Diane claimed, sympathy and remorse causing her voice to waver momentarily. "They just submitted a phony autopsy report and made me disappear. I woke up in an agency hospital two days later, and they gave me a choice. I could either go back to the life I had, where I wasn't sure of my future and where someone was apparently trying to kill me… or I could accept an assignment that would made vast strides in a critical area of our intelligence network. Since the damage to everyone I cared about had already been done, and since these people _had_ saved my life, I agreed to take the assignment."

"Then you've been in Asia for the past few years?" Mac asked, trying to focus on the mechanics of the situation rather than the emotions.

Diane nodded again. "In Taiwan, working for a front company called Reliant Technologies. We deal in information technology and network support systems. A number of our customers are defense subcontractors who do business with the Chinese military. We got into their databases whenever it was safely possible, and as a result, we now have a much clearer picture of China's capabilities in terms of weapons development. It's an extremely well run operation. I was proud to be a part of it."

"So why did you come back?" Harm asked bluntly, looking over at her for the first time.

"We were all functionally undercover twenty-four hours a day for years at a time. You can only do that for so long before you start to push the limits of your cover." She sighed. "In my case, there was a man. Specifically, there was an American businessman who was fairly bright and wouldn't take no for an answer. I couldn't call the police on him without drawing more attention to myself. So I kept our director advised on the situation, and eventually he decided that I'd gone as far as I could without endangering the larger mission. I could have stayed with the NSA, but I wanted my life back, so I resigned."

"And you want to rejoin the Navy?" Sturgis asked.

"Well, to be honest, I don't know if I really have to 'rejoin.' I never officially separated from the service."

Harm snorted. "Your father has a folded flag in his possession. That's about as official as it gets."

Both Mac and Sturgis looked at him askance, put off by the unbridled bitterness in their friend's tone. Diane recognized it, though, and replied without commenting on it. "The Department of Defense doesn't do well with requests to change a service member's status. I realize that. I also realize that even if I succeed, I'll be coming back as an O-3, and I'll probably be serving under O-4s and even O-5s who are years younger than I am. But I still want to serve. It's the life I chose, and I still take a kind of refuge in it. I want to be back out at sea, especially now, with the world so uncertain. I can't imagine that the Navy would be so rigid that they'd refuse a qualified cryptologist just because they already played Taps at my funeral."

"Don't underestimate them," Mac said dryly. "No, I'm sure we can make some inquiries and find out if it's possible to get your status changed. But shouldn't your former superiors over at NSA be able to give you some help with this?"

"I wish. But in bringing me in the way they did, my chief even had to bend some of NSA's own rules. Officially, no one named Diane Schonke ever worked for the National Security Agency. From the moment I left the hospital six years ago, I was Alison Markham. Even letting two people deep inside the Pentagon in on my cover would have been two too many for their liking. If someone comes out and publicly admits to the DoD that a deception of this magnitude was perpetrated on the Navy, all the usual inter-agency skirmishes will escalate into a full-blown war, and that's the last thing anyone needs at a time like this. So any help I get from NSA will have to be extremely quiet. You see, that's why I need you—at least, as many of you who are willing. I need to sneak this through the tiniest backchannels possible to avoid a public confrontation."

"That's not going to be easy," Sturgis warned. "We all know a few people who can get things done, but they're not going to act without some kind of corroboration for your story. If you walk up to the Navy with evidence of nothing besides your identity, the first thing they'll probably do is make us charge you with desertion."

"Worst-case scenario," Mac added, her brow furrowing. "You were assigned to the Seahawk at the time of your... disappearance, and your battle group had just returned from supporting Operation Deliberate Force in Bosnia. If the convening authorities wanted to get really nasty, they could try for desertion in a time of war."

Diane paled. "You don't really think—"

"Only if NSA completely cuts you loose, and even then it's not likely," Sturgis assured her. "Still, we have to be prepared. We all worked on a desertion case for a Jewish Marine last fall, and these two argued that he hadn't deserted in order to avoid hazardous duty. I think that applies here."

"Well, it didn't advance our case as far as we would have liked, but going from one branch of the U.S. government to another has got to look better than ditching the Marines in favor of the Israeli army." Mac turned to her partner. "And an attempt on a defendant's life is a pretty good rationale for a duress argument, wouldn't you say?"

Harm didn't respond, and the room took on an immediate chill. The three people there knew him better than just about anyone else on the planet, and his expression made it clear to them that he wasn't simply lost in thought. He knew he'd been asked a question, and he was choosing not to answer for a reason.

Ever the peacemaker, Sturgis chose to face the mounting tension head-on in an attempt to defuse it. "Listen, Di, none of us was in your shoes when all this happened, so we're not going to try and pass judgment on anything you did. Right, buddy?" When Harm remained silent, Sturgis kicked him none too discreetly in the shin. "Rabb. Speak."

Harm continued to focus his stony gaze on a corner of the coffee table. "I was always taught that if I couldn't say something nice, I shouldn't say anything at all."

Diane had expected him to be hurt, even angry. She hadn't expected this... coldness. "You don't even care, do you?" she asked, almost in disbelief. "I realize how awful this seems, but I thought you of all people—"

He gave a short laugh. "You're not in the best position to be talking about empathy at the moment."

"You think I haven't reconsidered that decision every day for the last six years? I didn't see that I had much choice! Someone wanted me dead, remember? You saw yourself what he did to me—"

"And now you see what that did to me. Does that make us even?"

She recoiled from the ugly tone. "Have you really changed this much?" she whispered. "I don't even think I recognize you right now."

"Of _course_ I changed! I thought I'd lost everything that day, and it did change me, all right? It changed me into a person who was capable of taking vengeance, and believe me, that was a big step. Only now it sounds like maybe I had less to lose than I thought."

"Wait a minute!" Diane jumped to her feet. "Just what did you think you _had_?"

"I thought I had something worth holding onto. Something I wouldn't so easily have obliterated to go play spy games."

"Are you actually trivializing the concept of serving our country because of personal spite?"

"I'm not trivializing anything. I'm well aware that 99.9 percent of American citizens would probably approve and even praise your sacrifice. But all those people don't know you, do they? All I'm saying is that you chose that service over everyone who loved you. I know I don't get to decide whether that's right or wrong, but damn it, you don't get to decide how I feel about it!"

Harm flung himself out of the chair and stalked away from the group.

"What do you want from me?" Diane demanded hotly, trembling. "Am I supposed to _apologize_ for not being dead? Is that it? I'm screwing up your tragic hero self-portrait or something?"

"I don't want an apology!" He whirled back toward her. "What I want is to know why I almost killed a man for something that turned out to be a lie!"

Silence descended heavily on the room. As they stared at each other, anguish burning white-hot between them, Sturgis rose from his seat. "I think we should go." He reached out to tug Mac's sleeve.

Fighting back overwhelming curiosity and concern for her partner, Mac reluctantly nodded and followed him. "We'll be in touch," she murmured in Diane's direction, then laid a hand on Harm's arm. "See you tomorrow?"

"Right." He didn't move, however, until the door had closed behind his friends.

"So, that discussion about the future," he began, in a more controlled voice. "The one we were supposed to have had that weekend at Norfolk. Since you'd been considering the NSA job, I'm guessing you weren't going to suggest that we make our relationship more serious."

"Your friend Maria might have had something to say about that," Diane fired back, still smarting.

"Oh, for the love of—I didn't learn to make Thai food and watch baseball for Maria, all right? I didn't spend four hours in the back of a freezing C-141 and break all speed limits on station at San Diego to pin lieutenant's bars on Maria! The only reason I ever spent any time with her in the first place was because I couldn't be with you, and we never pretended otherwise. What the hell did Keeter _tell_ you, anyway?"

"Nothing I didn't already know. You weren't prepared to sit down and map out a future with me or anybody else. Why should I have rejected NSA out of hand, when all they were asking for at first was a trial assignment?"

The second part of that statement was completely lost on him as he struggled to grasp the first part. "What did I say or do to make you think I didn't want to think about the future? Why do you think I was so determined to see you that weekend?"

When she only looked at him, disbelieving, a new wound was torn open on his scarred soul. All this time, he'd held a certain image in his mind, a surprisingly romantic idea that had fate not intervened that night, everything would have fallen into place for them at last. That had somehow become his truth without him even realizing it—the lens through which he looked back on that chapter of his life. Only now, as that flimsy construct came crumbling down, did he see it for what it was.

"I see," he said dully, turning away from her. "I'm sorry. I must have... misinterpreted."

Beginning to understand, Diane felt a painful lump rise in her throat. She'd hurt him all over again, simply by not knowing how deeply she'd hurt him the first time. "It's not that I didn't want a future for us," she attempted to explain. "But you wouldn't have been able to make any major decisions at that point. You'd just started at JAG a few months before, and Luke had just died, and everything felt so up in the air..."

"You thought that I wouldn't be able to make a commitment, so you weren't even going to bother trying for one?"

"Harm, we weren't kids, even then," she said softly. "We'd known each other for more than ten years, and in all that time we'd never been able to get past a certain level. I couldn't find any reason to believe that things were going to change. Could you?"

His response was low, defeated. "Back then, actually, I could. Since everything else in my life had changed over the course of those couple of years, I guess I thought we could, too."

Tears brimmed in her large brown eyes, and she resisted the urge to reach out to him. "I'm so sorry," she whispered.

"Me, too."

She tried to laugh, but it came out choked and awkward. "Really? I'm sorry for the lies, and for not giving you the chance you wanted, and for ripping your heart out and stomping on it. What are you sorry for?"

He kept his gaze focused on the floor, only glancing up at her from under his brows. "I'm sorry for not taking any of the other chances we had, and for throwing everything back in your face tonight ... but mainly, I'm sorry for being late."

"Late?"

He shrugged impassively. "If I'd come to meet the ship when you first docked, maybe none of this would have happened."

There was another silence—not as painful as the first, but not comfortable, either. "So where do we go from here?" Diane asked tentatively.

Harm shrugged again, trying to sound neutral. "We focus on the task at hand. We find a way to get you back into the Navy, and I guess we see where that takes us."

She lifted a hand to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, unsure of her next question. "Do you think we'll be able to be friends again?"

Before she could drop her hand, he reached out and caught it in his. "You shouldn't have to ask that," he said quietly. "I'm not saying it'll be easy, but as long as we both walk this earth, I'll still be your friend."

Scrubbing a few stray tears from her eyes, she squeezed his hand and stepped back to retrieve her purse. "I guess I'll talk to you tomorrow, then."

"You know where to find me."

After she'd gone, Harm stood in the center of the room, lost. In the span of a few hours, nearly every constant in his life had been torn to shreds, and the pieces seemed to be reassembling into something unrecognizable. Was he supposed to just buck up and move on in the same direction as before? How could he continue in the present when someone had altered the past?

Feeling more alone than ever, he reached for the phone and hit the memory button.

"Mackenzie."

Her calm, confident voice, so different from Diane's ... "Are you busy right now?" he asked, forgetting to identify himself.

Of course, he didn't have to. "I'll be there in a minute."

"Huh? How are you—"

"Do you need a friend right about now?"

He sighed. "I need _you_ right about now."

Although he couldn't have picked up on it over the phone, that comment both elated and worried her. "Then don't question my methods."

"Okay." He slumped down onto the couch, too rocked by the evening's events to consider doubting her. "I'm so damn confused, Mac."

"You're entitled to be. They don't make self-help books for this one."

"But I ought to be able to handle it better. I ought to be happy, for God's sake. I thought she was gone, and now I have a chance to know her again. The thing is... what happened to her feels like such a big part of who I am, and I don't know how to undo that. I'm not even sure if I want to."

"It'll be all right. Unlock your door."

He frowned even as he moved to comply. "Mac, a Tomcat couldn't have gotten you here this fast."

"Just open the door, would you?"

He did, and a few seconds later, Mac walked through it, dropping her cell phone on his desk. She took one look at him, at the utter helplessness that marred his features, and immediately wrapped her arms around his neck.

"I was out front in my car," she confessed as he returned the embrace, willingly receiving the strength she offered. "Just in case."

"You're incredible," he mumbled into her shoulder.

She stayed for an hour, and in that time only a few words passed between them. She didn't need to be told, and he didn't want to speak. Yet that nearly silent visit would be his foundation for the days and weeks to come.


	6. 6

Chapter 6

The next morning Mac returned from her run to find Harm waiting outside her apartment, immaculately uniformed and leaning against the hood of his SUV, arms crossed. Her internal clock told her it was still a few minutes shy of 0700, which meant Harm must have gotten a _very_ early call this morning.

"What's up?" she asked when she reached him.

Beneath the brim of his cover, his eyes were dark and serious. He handed her the water bottle she'd left on her kitchen counter along with the towel that had been lying beside it.

"Master Chief Zonne is dead."

Mac paused in the act of raising the bottle to her lips. "What happened?"

"Suicide, they think."

"But his appeal hearing is tomorrow."

Harm nodded minutely. "DC police are still investigating and the coroner needs to look at the body before we'll know anything for sure."

Mac took a swig of water. "How did he die?"

Harm straightened, uncrossing his arms. "Stuck a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. The gun was his—a Beretta 9mm. They found the registration in his office. The trajectory and blood spatter were consistent with a self-inflicted wound. No signs of forced entry or struggle."

By the time he reached the end of his description, Mac realized he'd already been to the crime scene. She felt a flash of anger at having been excluded, but quelled it. On the heels of what had been a pretty ugly confrontation with Diane the night before, he undoubtedly needed some space. Riding his case over little things would not help.

"What about his family?" Zonne had a wife and two grown daughters.

Harm glanced toward the sun, which was just peeking over the tops of the nearby buildings. "His wife was in bed when she heard the gunshot. The daughters are both away at school."

Mulling her thoughts, Mac led the way up to her apartment. They'd met with the master chief just yesterday to prep for his appeal hearing. He had been an assistant to Rear Admiral James Rupert, Commander of the Navy Exchange Service Command, before charges of wrongful disposition of military property had ended his career. The evidence had been mostly circumstantial, which was why the jury had given him only a dishonorable discharge and loss of benefits, not jail time. Now, with new evidence coming to light that others within the NEXCOM organization had been involved in selling millions of dollars worth of goods out the back doors of several exchanges, Harm felt the master chief's claim that he was ignorant of the scheme just might carry enough weight to win an appeal.

Mac opened her door and walked in. "He was under a lot of stress." The financial strain of putting two children through college, trouble in the marriage, fear of the future. They'd both seen the marks of it on Zonne's face.

Harm followed her, laying his cover on her dining room table and running a hand through his hair. "Yeah, but why do it the day before the hearing? He knew we had a fair shot at having the conviction overturned."

Mac didn't have an answer for that one. She hooked a thumb toward her bedroom. "I'm going to grab a shower. Keep talking if you want." 

While she showered, he stood just outside the bathroom doorway, filling her in on the additional details. Except for the timing, nothing stood out to her as cause for question. 

"Do you really think there's a chance this wasn't a suicide?" she asked at one point. 

"I don't know, Mac." She heard a doubtful note in his voice. "I guess I'll have to hear what the coroner has to say before I can form an opinion there."

Beneath the streams of water, Mac raised an eyebrow. She'd never known Harm to dither in his opinions. He followed his gut, holding to his instinctive conclusions until the facts proved him wrong, which did happen, though not all that often.

She did her best to cover the sudden uncertainty she felt. "I can talk to the wife while you see what the police have dug up."

"Sounds good."

Mac turned the shower off. "Have you had breakfast yet?" She squeezed water from her hair, waiting for his response.

"No, I've been going solid since about three."

Glad Harm couldn't see her smile, she shook herself into motion once again. "How does scrambled eggs and toast grab you?" 

He paused a beat before answering, "Sure, that'd be great." 

By the time she emerged from the bathroom, Harm had retreated to safer territory. Mac tossed on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt and hurried toward the kitchen. She found him already there, efficiently cracking eggs into a stainless steel mixing bowl.

"Aha! Caught you."

He looked up with a half-formed grin. "I was just... getting things started for you." The smile gained power when she rolled her eyes.

"I volunteered to cook, Flyboy, so scram." She made shooing motions as she walked toward him. He backed away when she got close, raising his hands in mock surrender.

"I'm going, I'm going." He started slowly out of the kitchen, putting on a burst of speed when she grabbed the dishtowel and twirled it between her hands. They'd gotten into a wicked towel war once, many years earlier, that had only ended because they'd both been laughing too hard to stand up straight let alone snap their towels at each other. 

__

Back when our relationship was simple, Mac thought with a pang. Back before Dalton Lowne, before Harm left to fly—back when their friendship had been purely that, untainted by longing, or love.

Mac realized she'd just been standing there, dishtowel hanging limply from her hand. But if Harm noticed her lapse he didn't comment, and with a quick shake of her head she set about making breakfast.

Harm didn't stay out of the kitchen. As soon as she returned her weapon to its usual place on the oven door, he wandered back in and started pulling out bread, butter and condiments. Mac didn't protest. She liked his company and the closeness engendered by the tiny confines of her kitchen. The scent of his cologne mixed nicely with the warm smells of toast and coffee. She had hopes—probably vain hopes—that it would someday be a daily occurrence. 

When the food was ready, they moved to the table where they ate in companionable silence. Eventually, Mac forced her thoughts away from her chaotic feelings toward her partner and onto the task at hand, which was the unexpected death of Master Chief Zonne.

"Have you talked to the Admiral about this yet?"

Harm scraped a last spoonful of eggs onto his fork and popped them in his mouth. "No. I figured 0900 was soon enough."

"Hmmm." Mac bit her lip as an idea occurred to her. "If you'll cover for me, I can stop by the Zonnes' house on my way in. It's only a couple of miles from here."

"No problem."

"Do you know if she has family to go to? Mrs. Zonne, I mean." Sheila Zonne had struck Mac as a woman whose life revolved around her husband and children. Losing one of those cornerstones would devastate her.

"I don't know." Harm shrugged, toying idly with his coffee mug.

Mac sighed. "I feel so sorry for her. Can you imagine what it must have been like for her to come downstairs and find her husband dead like that?"

Harm's head snapped up, his gaze centering on her with hawkish intensity. "I have an idea," he said quietly.

Mac's heart sank in dismay when she realized his implication. "Geez, Harm, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"

He waved her off, the lines of his face somber. "Forget it, Mac. I'm sure I'm hypersensitive. Everything seems to remind me of Diane right now."

Mac had to fight not to let him see how much that statement hurt. She made a gesture indicating her face. "I guess I don't help, do I?" She could hear the traces of bitterness in her own voice.

To her surprise, Harm's expression softened, though the intensity of his gaze didn't fade. 

"You don't remind me of anybody but you, Mac," he told her with such conviction that she almost believed him.

#

Harm was waiting for the coroner outside the double doors leading into the morgue when his cell phone rang.

"Commander Rabb."

"Hi, Harm, it's Diane." 

Harm rocked onto his heels, his smooth-soled uniform shoes squeaking on the cheap linoleum. Every time he was reminded that she really wasn't dead, it shocked him all over again. 

He cleared his throat, buying himself a moment to gather his composure. "Hey, Di. What's up?"

"I—" She paused, sounding inordinately shy. "I was just calling to see if you had any plans for lunch. I thought maybe we could... catch up some."

For a moment, Harm was transplanted into the past, to a time when a call from this woman was cause enough to dump whatever he was doing in favor of spending the time with her. Lunch, a weekend of leave... whatever it was, the invitation was always the first step in something wonderful.

He snapped back to the present, squeezing his eyes shut. "I can't. I'm in the middle of something right now, Di." Conflicting desires warred in his heart. "Maybe... maybe tomorrow?" He and Mac would still have to go before the hearing judge as a formality despite their client's death, so he'd be in the office. Thoughts of what Mac might say flitted through his mind, but he ignored them with determination. She would understand.

"Sure, tomorrow would be fine. Do you want to meet someplace?" He was grateful Diane hadn't suggested she meet him at JAG HQ. That would have been too complicated, which she seemed to comprehend.

Before he could formulate a response, Harm spied the city coroner rounding the bend at the end of the hall.

"Listen, Di, I've got to go. Can I call you later to work out the details?"

"Okay. Do you have the number of my hotel?"

"If I don't, Mac will," he assured her, and then wondered why it seemed like the exact wrong thing to say. He didn't have time to figure it out then, though. He flipped his phone shut and went to meet the coroner. 

Gabriel Dunn was a tall, stoop-shouldered man with thinning blond hair and an equally scraggly mustache. Harm had first met him during the investigation into Jordan's murder and found him surprisingly easy to work with.

"Commander Rabb." Dunn shook his hand briskly. "You're here about my suicide victim, I take it?"

Harm nodded, forcing his thoughts onto the case. "What can you tell me?"

"Absolutely nothing." The coroner smiled at his startled reaction. "I'm running behind—haven't done the exam yet. I was just headed that way, though, if you want to stick around."

Harm wasn't terribly fond of autopsies, but he did want to see the body. "All right." He followed Dunn through the double doors and into a room smelling of death and chemical disinfectants. Master Chief Zonne's body lay on one of three examining tables. Harm studied it as the coroner bustled around him in preparation.

"Single gunshot," Dunn told him, pointing as he spoke. "In through the mouth, out through the back of the head." He turned Zonne's head to show Harm the gaping exit wound matted with blood and brain matter. "The Crime Scene Unit found residue on his right hand." He picked up the hand in question, examining it briefly. "But there don't seem to be any other marks or abrasions."

Harm stood back as the coroner began the formal exam, listening absently as he listed off basic statistics and observations into a hand-held recorder. 

"Oh ho, what's this?"

The exclamation brought Harm to Dunn's side. "Found something?"

Dunn pointed out a small red area on the Master Chief's back, low near the hip. "_That_ is a puncture mark." He probed the tiny wound. "Made by something long and very narrow, like a needle."

A fresh suspicion flared in Harm's mind. "That might explain why there weren't any signs of struggle."

Dunn glanced over at him, frowning thoughtfully. "I already sent a blood sample to toxicology. It shouldn't take too long to find out."

#

"Commander, Colonel, I take it things have gotten complicated with the Zonne appeal?" Admiral Chegwidden looked at them over the rims of his reading glasses.

Seated in front of the desk, Harm glanced at Mac. They hadn't had a chance to compare notes before being called in to the Admiral's office, so the information would be new to her as well.

"Yes, sir. It looks like Master Chief Zonne was murdered."

Mac's eyebrows arched eloquently. "What happened to suicide?"

"It's not so likely when you've got enough sedatives in your blood to KO a horse." Harm held out the folder he was carrying, offering the toxicology report to the Admiral. "The coroner found a needle mark, and according to the tox screen, the master chief couldn't have been conscious when he was shot." 

The Admiral scanned the report, then handed it back.

Mac's expression grew thoughtful. "So whoever did it wanted it to look like suicide... and did a pretty good job of it, except they didn't know the coroner would have his blood screened? Doesn't sound like a professional."

Harm caught her eye, his own thoughts turning. "A smart amateur, maybe? They knew enough to make sure the gunpowder residue ended up on his hand, and the bullet's trajectory was consistent with a self-inflicted wound."

"He would have to have been a pretty big guy. Master Chief Zonne weighs, what, two-twenty? If he was unconscious, somebody had to put him in the chair."

"Could you do it?" Harm asked, wanting a better idea of how much strength it required. He knew he could move a man like that, easily, but that didn't help him with the other end of the spectrum.

Mac narrowed her eyes. "Not without making a racket. Mrs. Zonne was asleep upstairs, don't forget."

"So almost certainly a man."

"And one who didn't break in. So he either knew the Zonnes, or had access to a key."

"Or was skilled at picking locks, though that would blow the smart amateur theory away."

As they bounced bits of information back and forth, a picture of their killer started to form. It was a skill they'd honed both together and separately, and one they'd become quite proficient at.

Admiral Chegwidden watched the verbal ping pong until they started to wind down. 

"D.C. police doesn't want to let go of the case unless there's reason to believe military personnel are responsible for the murder," he told them. 

Harm and Mac both turned, giving him their undivided attention as he went on, "However, since they have to admit that might just be the case, they've agreed to share information with our investigators, which would be the two of you."

Harm nodded. "Aye, sir."

"Keep me informed of your progress."

Recognizing the dismissal, the two officers rose to their feet. "Yes, sir," Harm said as they came to attention, then turned toward the door.

"Oh, Commander—" 

Harm turned back. "Sir?"

"What is Lieutenant Schonke's status, if I may ask?"

Harm felt his fingers clench at his sides. Why couldn't he find it in himself to be happy she was alive? 

"Sir, she's officially dead to the Navy, and, unfortunately, she didn't work for NSA under her real name. She also didn't go to work for them in an entirely above board manner." He shrugged uncomfortably. "Proving she isn't guilty of desertion is going to be difficult without setting off an inter-agency war."

"She wants to be reinstated?"

"Yes, sir."

Chegwidden frowned. "Well, it's not strictly Navy business, but I think I can stretch the definition if need be." He pinned Harm with a stern stare. "Just make sure it doesn't interfere with your regular caseload."

Harm accepted the mild rebuke with a nod. "Yes, sir."

"Very well. Dismissed."

Harm left the Admiral's office with a slightly lighter heart. No matter what had happened between them, Diane deserved a chance to get on with her life. And he would do everything in his power to see that she got it.


	7. 7

Chapter 7

At 1130 the following day, Diane was sitting in a café near her hotel, feigning interest in the newspaper in front of her. Her fingers drummed anxiously on the table as she reconsidered the wisdom of this lunch date for the seventeenth time. Their last encounter had been strained, to put it lightly. But if she was ever going to be an actual part of his life again—in whatever capacity that might be possible—she would have to get to know him as he was today, not as the troubled young officer she'd known seemingly half a lifetime ago.

Harm walked in a few minutes late, offering a look of honest apology. "Got hung up in a meeting with DCPD," he explained, taking a seat across from her. "Hope you haven't been waiting long."

"Nah, it's fine. What's going on with the police?"

"Do you remember the master chief Mac and I were representing in the NEXCOM fiasco?"

"Sort of."

"He was killed early yesterday morning. Our appeal hearing turned into a murder investigation somewhere in the interim."

Diane frowned. "That kind of thing is within the scope of your duty as a JAG? Tracking down killers?"

"It's not like I haven't done it before." Immediately Harm wished he could erase that comment. She recognized its meaning, but before she could respond, the arrival of their waiter stalled the conversation.

As soon as they were once again alone, she leaned her elbows on the table. "How did you find him?"

"Holbarth?"

"Yeah. After all that time, after the report had been closed and forgotten, why did you go back to it?"

Harm gave her an uncomfortable look and shrugged. "I guess I never completely accepted the idea that it had been Lamm who shot you," he said, his gaze fixed in the distance beyond her right shoulder. "I tried for a while because it hurt too much to think about it going unresolved, but somewhere along the line it started to hurt too much to _not_ do something about it. One day I went through all your old letters and I found a draft of your complaint to Holbarth. Then it all started to make sense."

A sudden wash of bitter anger filled her mouth. Holbarth had intended to take her life from her and though he'd failed in the literal sense, the rest was open for interpretation. 

"It made sense to you, maybe, though not in a way any court would accept," she told him. "But I guess that's why you confronted him yourself. That much I read about in the report."

He fixed her with a piercing gaze. "How much else did you read about?"

She chewed on her lip, weighing her response. "I know Colonel Mackenzie was there in a borrowed Navy lieutenant's uniform. I know Holbarth fell from the pier and was killed." She looked away, her voice low. "I don't know whether you pushed him or not, and I'm not sure I want to know."

An old shadow darkened his eyes, hardened them. "I didn't. He panicked when he saw Mac and lost his balance. Whether I would have shot him if he hadn't fallen… I'm not sure I want to know that, either."

Diane studied the man who had once been her closest friend. The hardened core inside him, something that had been visible in brief flashes even in their Academy days, showed plainly now. The blue-gray eyes reflected little turbulence at his last statement. Diane didn't know if that was because he'd accepted it and moved on, or if he'd simply become that adept at keeping his feelings hidden. She suspected the latter, sadly enough.

Silence descended for a moment. Diane cleared her throat, making an attempt to shake off the grimness. "Okay. Besides that, tell me what you've been up to for the past few years." Her eyes settled on his ribbons. She still remembered how to read them, though she hadn't really taken the time before. Now, the DFC with its bronze second award tag grabbed her attention. "I have no doubt that you've been getting into your fair share of trouble." She raised her gaze to his.

Harm smiled ruefully. "Understatement. What do you want to hear about first? How Mac and I found out what happened to my dad? The tour I did on the _Patrick Henry_ during the Kosovo conflict? The brother I met a couple of years ago? Or the Tomcat I ditched in the Atlantic?"

By the time he'd finished the list, her eyes were saucer-huge. But she nodded. "All of the above," she requested bravely. "Chronologically, I guess."

"That _was_ chronological."

She rolled her eyes at him, nevertheless glad to see the return of the wry humor that had always been so characteristic of him. "In a little more detail, please."

Over the course of lunch, he recounted all of that and more, starting with Bud Roberts' first bumbling weeks at JAG and continuing up through the present. There were parts he glossed over, she could tell, but she didn't press. Nor did she miss the cautious way he treaded around Mac's presence in so many of parts of his narrative. Diane resolved to ignore it. Whatever relationship she was going to have with Harm would be forged by the two of them, independent of his relationship with Mac.

" …so I hear Mac say, 'Harm, come take a look at this.' I turn around, and there's none other than Sturgis Turner pulling up in my Vette!"

"No way. _Sturgis_ took it?"

"To get the new top put on, as a Christmas present. All day I'd been going nuts about that car, and he'd had it the whole time."

Diane laughed, shaking her head. "You two have never been very predictable. I can't imagine what an office with both of you in it must be like."

"We're older and wiser now, remember? At the very least, one of the two." He smiled, a more open and familiar smile than before. "Anyway, you were hardly boring yourself. I'll bet you gave your NSA cohorts fits with your stealth sarcasm. It was downright diabolical how you could insult someone without them knowing it."

Diane looked suddenly thoughtful. "My NSA cohorts," she echoed. "You know, I worked with a core group of people for almost six years, and I don't even know most of their real names. It's like I got older, but my life stopped moving forward the day I left the U.S."

"You were still you, even if your name was different," Harm pointed out reasonably. "You didn't stop learning or gaining new experiences."

"But the things I missed… I mean, I was halfway around the world on September 11th. I can't possibly have the same perspective on it that you do. For the past year or so, you've been part of a Navy at war. I guess maybe I feel like I should have been part of it along with you."

His eyebrows knit in surprise and disbelief. "Do you really think that what you were doing was any less important? Maybe we're not in a shooting war with China, but that doesn't mean I trust their government any further than I can throw an F-8."

She gave him an odd look, born of conflicting hope and fear. "Does this mean you're starting to forgive me for going?"

The shields came up in his eyes. "Maybe. I don't know. I just know that I didn't really enjoy my visit to China over the EP-3 incident, and the time before that was sheer hell on earth." Seeing her confusion, he stopped short. "Did I not tell you about that? It happened a couple of weeks before your cruise ended… maybe I was waiting to tell you when you got back."

Something about his expression chilled her. "Well, now I'm back," she said cautiously. "So tell me."

He cocked an eyebrow in a distinctly _you asked for it_ expression. "Okay. When you first went to work over there, did you ever hear anything about a territorial dispute between Hong Kong and the mainland?"

"Matsu and Quemoy, sure. It was one of the first briefings I got when I arrived. The U.S. sent a maritime law advisor to help determine our position, and the Chinese went off and abducted the guy—" She trailed off as a terrible understanding set in. "Oh, God," she whispered. "It was you?"

Harm nodded impassively.

"What happened?"

"Apparently they were expecting me, and they didn't think much of the sailing trip I was using as a cover. One minute I was changing tack, and the next I was getting rammed by a Chinese Navy cruiser. I fell from the bow when the hull gave way. The next thing I remember is waking up in a very dark cell."

With dread in her voice, she asked, "What did they do to you?"

He shrugged. "A little bit of everything. Lots of drugs, mostly – they wanted to know what recommendation I intended to give the State Department, and they tried like hell to get it out of me. Only problem was, I didn't have any recommendation to give them, because I'd only just arrived. It's a good thing, since by the time the deal was made for my release I could barely remember my own name. I swear, it was forty-eight hours before I could think straight."

He'd recounted it all with a sense of detachment that told her more about the ordeal than the words did. Then, as if flipping a switch, he gave a small smile, and he seemed to be himself again. "Anyway, long story short, you don't need to justify your work over there to me. I'm not going to say it doesn't still hurt that you went, but I can understand."

"I'm glad," she said softly, feeling her face start to warm under his gaze. Faint warning chimes began to sound in her mind as she recalled how he'd first melted her with those eyes back at Annapolis. It had always been easier to think logically about their relationship when they were apart—when she hadn't had to deal with his eyes, his touch, his presence…

Sitting across from him now, she had to wonder—had things had been different, would she have been able to stand face to face with him and tell him she was leaving?

Harm noticed the tears starting to form and reached across the table for her hand. "Hey, what's wrong?" The touch sent a jolt through her, evoking a maelstrom of memories that were by turn joyous, painful, and passionate. If there had ever been a time she'd believed she'd gotten Harmon Rabb out of her system, she had obviously been mistaken.

Diane shook her head. "Nothing, really. I just… I think I'm starting to figure out how much I missed you."

Harm watched her silently for a moment before withdrawing his hand. "I have a suggestion. Let's make this our last venture into the past, at least for the time being. Let's concentrate on where we are now, and maybe we'll get through this with our collective wits intact."

Diane accepted that. "I think that's a pretty good plan." She squared her shoulders. "So, looking to the future— how should I go about convincing the Navy to take me back?"

"Well, I've done a little background research. You were assigned to the Second Fleet, so the convening authority for your Article 32 would theoretically be Admiral Wendland. His record on desertion and similar charges, like UA and missing movement, is tough but pretty even-handed. He also has a background in intel, so that's a point in our favor. The thing that concerns me the most is the possible turf war we might start. The Navy crossed swords with the CIA last spring— partly because of an op of ours, but that's irrelevant— and we ended up with a Senate hearing and a new SECNAV out of the deal. So we'll have to see how sympathetic the brass is before nailing down our strategy. I'm thinking about emphasizing the fact that you were in mortal danger at the time of your decision…"

When he saw the look of wonder on her face, he paused. "What?"

Diane smiled and shook her head. "Before you walked in here, I wasn't sure you even really wanted to help me. Now I see that you've already got a plan of attack and you're prepared to battle the commander of the Second Fleet himself on my behalf."

"It's my job, Di."

"I think your CO might see it differently."

That, oddly enough, earned her a faint smirk, which disappeared an instant later. "He's given me permission, so long as I don't prioritize this over the rest of my caseload." Harm looked down at the Academy ring he'd been twisting around on his finger. 

The action took Diane back to the day he'd gotten it. She'd swiped it, holding it ransom in exchange for a crab dinner downtown. He'd stolen it back, of course, but he'd still taken her to that dinner. Who in their right mind would have thought on that day that seventeen years later, they could end up here, like this?

"I do want to help you," Harm said softly. "Very much. You must have known that I would, right?"

"I guess I did. But I'm incredibly grateful, all the same." This time, she was the one to reach across the table, brushing her thumb over his ring. "I haven't seen my class ring since the night I was shot. The fake coroners must have taken it off somewhere along the line."

"They did." To her utter astonishment, he reached into his pocket and handed her a small box. "It was returned to your parents with your personal belongings. They wanted me to keep it. I meant to return it to you the other night, but it slipped my mind."

This time the tears came in earnest, as she slipped the ring onto her finger. "I think this means I owe you dinner," she pointed out with a sniffle, vainly trying to dry her eyes.

In return, he flashed a grin she hadn't seen in years, possibly since before his crash. The power of it effectively pinned her to her seat, breathless, as he rose from the table. "That was the precedent we set, I believe. Listen, I really have to get back. But I'll be in touch either later on today or tomorrow, all right?"

All she could do was nod and try to return the smile as he laid several bills on the table then vanished through the café doors. 

__

You knew this was going to happen, she told herself silently. _You knew you wouldn't be able to see him again without feeling like this. You'd better figure out a way to deal with it before it gets too hard to handle._

#

Harm's cell phone rang before he'd gotten three steps from the front door of the café. Shaking his head in an attempt to clear the huge mix of emotions his conversation with Diane had stirred up, he retrieved his phone.

"Rabb."

"Hey, it's me." Mac's voice was instantly recognizable, and edged with caution. "I hope I'm not interrupting."

Harm couldn't help a sour grin. He wouldn't tell her it was actually a relief to have something to distract him from his tumultuous thoughts. "Nope. As always, your timing is superb."

Her response was a noncommittal snort, but when she spoke again he could hear the smile in her tone. "I've got some information on the drug that was used to sedate Master Chief Zonne." The humor faded quickly as she explained. "It's pretty common—used in prescription sleep aids like Noctran and such. Detective Mills said Zonne didn't have a prescription, but guess what? His wife does. She's been using them for almost a decade." Harm raised an eyebrow as she went on. "They're checking now to see if any of her pills are missing."

Harm reached his car. He dug his keys out of his pocket and opened the door, juggling the phone from hand to hand as he did. "What did Mrs. Zonne say when you talked to her?"

Mac sighed in his ear. "Not very much, honestly. She didn't seem terribly surprised, but she kept saying he'd changed since his discharge from the Navy and didn't have anything to live for."

"What about his appeal?" Zonne had appeared more desperate than hopeful to Harm, but not unusually so for a man in his situation.

"She was pretty cynical about it. I guess that's not too surprising. I get the feeling a lot of their problems started when the master chief was court-martialed. Anyway, the DC police are bringing her in for questioning and I'm going to go sit in."

Harm started his Lexus. "Okay. I'm headed back to the office. I need to sort through who from his old chain of command is being investigated for wrongful disposition. If Zonne knew something about the scheme, maybe someone was afraid he'd talk."

He imagined Mac's casual shrug. "Well, that's a better motive than Mrs. Zonne's fifty thousand from her husband's life insurance. She'd have done better in a divorce, most likely. But, I'll give you a call if I learn anything interesting."

They hung up and Harm turned his thoughts, and his vehicle, toward Falls Church.

#

Mac got home around 1800 that night. Listening to Mrs. Zonne had been a depressing experience. The fifty-one year old widow had been fatalistically accepting of the idea that her husband had committed suicide. The concept of murder had shaken her to her core—at least, that was Mac's opinion. Since a number of Mrs. Zonne's sleeping pills were, in fact, missing, Detective Mills was less optimistic.

Mac slipped off her pumps by the door, dropped her purse and keys on the table, and proceeded stocking-footed into the kitchen. Before anything else, she needed some coffee. What bothered her more than anything was the obvious signs of failure that had marked the Zonnes' relationship. They were married—twenty-seven years—and they'd raised two children together, but they weren't happy. Sometimes it seemed like the happily ever after of fairy tales was a lie.

__

If it weren't for Bud and Harriet, I don't think I'd have any hope left at all. She smiled at the thought of her friends, happy despite all the challenges in their lives.

A quiet knock at the door brought her out of her reverie. She went to answer it, and was thoroughly startled to find Diane standing on the other side. Mac's gut knotted.

She forced a smile. "Hello, Diane. Come in." She stepped back. 

Diane wandered into the apartment, looking around with patent curiosity. Her gaze lingered on the worktable with its collection of fossils, rock and bone fragments.

"This is nice," she told Mac.

"Thanks. Coffee?" She had to make an effort to keep her hands from clenching into fists at her sides. 

"Sure."

Grateful for something to do, Mac went into the kitchen. She returned, a mug of coffee in either hand, to find Diane seated on her couch, hands clasped between her knees. Mac was somewhat reassured; Diane seemed as uncomfortable as she felt.

Setting one mug down in front of her visitor, Mac took a seat across from her in the chair. "So," she said with more confidence than she felt. "What's up?"

Diane looked up briefly. "I... need to ask you a question."

Throat suddenly dry, Mac nodded. "Okay."

"Is Harm seeing anyone?"

With that question, Mac's world ended. Pain, pure and unadulterated, crushed her chest, robbing her of breath. It had been hard enough to compete with this woman's memory. Against the flesh-and-blood, she didn't stand a chance.

"Ah... no. He's not."

Diane's expression brightened minutely. She toyed with her coffee cup, turning it this way and that on the little table.

"What about... the two of you?" She didn't quite meet Mac's gaze.

Mac stared at the wall. "We're just friends." The platitude rang a flat note inside her heart, mocking her with its discordance. That was no more true than it would have been to claim they were together. But there were no words to describe the limbo she and Harm had been trapped in for so long. Even worse, the woman sitting across from her might very well be the prime reason they'd never been able to move forward with their relationship.

"You've never been involved?"

Mac suffered a momentary flash of memory—a warm summer night and a desperate, passion-soaked kiss that she could still feel down to the tips of her toes. She shoved the memory away, exiling it to the dark corner that housed most of her dreams. That was the only place it had ever belonged. She unconsciously squared her shoulders.

"...No."

Diane didn't question the claim. She smiled, a shy, hopeful expression, and blew out her breath in a sigh. "Well, thanks for letting me be nosy. I didn't know who else I could ask."

"You could have asked Harm," Mac told her pointedly. Her first duty to him would always be as his friend.

Diane's cheeks colored. "Um, yeah. I just didn't want to... make things awkward for him if he was seeing someone. More awkward." She flashed a sheepish grin.

Mac watched her twin, her own feelings hidden behind an iron shield. "Do you really think Harm's going to want to pick up where you two left off?"

Diane snorted, her gaze growing distant. "I don't know. He's so different now." She shook her head. "But in a good way—stronger, more confident." She paused. "Happy, even. I don't think he was this content even before his crash."

Mac found that comment strangely warming. "He's found a lot of resolution since you knew him," she agreed. 

"His dad." Diane nodded. "He told me about that. I'm glad he found out what happened to him."

Mac knew there was a good deal more to it than that, but decided to let it go. Against her will, her thoughts began to march through the possible future progression of Harm and Diane's life together, and a few things immediately jumped out at her. 

"How does your reinstatement in the Navy fit with you and Harm?" she asked before she could consider the wisdom of the action. "You'd be stationed somewhere—possibly outside the U.S.—and out to sea part of the time. He's not going to be leaving D.C. any time soon, at least not without taking a career hit." _Another_ career hit, Mac amended silently.

Diane straightened in her seat. "I... hadn't really thought about it." 

"You probably should." Harm might very well have the opportunity now to make things work with the only woman he'd ever admitted to loving. And though it might tear her own heart into shreds, that chance for him was worth protecting with everything she had. "He deserves to know what you're offering, up front." 

Diane pressed her lips together, eyes narrowing. But then she nodded and stood. "You're right. He does." She squared her shoulders. "And I will. Thanks for the good advice."

Mac climbed to her feet, feeling weary and cold. "You're welcome," she managed. She saw Diane to the door, then closed it behind her, leaning her forehead against the smooth wood. Unbidden, the tears slipped down her cheeks, accompanied by a familiar, rending sense of loss.


	8. 8

Chapter 8

The next two days were uniformly strained, though Harm was having a hard time pinpointing exactly why. Mac was in a foul mood that didn't seem to have any obvious cause, Diane had grown suddenly reticent about that dinner she owed him, and Sturgis watched him with barely-concealed accusation in his gaze, though over what Harm couldn't have said. It was starting to drive him batty.

"Lieutenant Sims, a moment," he called, seeing the familiar blond head passing by outside his open office door.

Harriet stuck her head inside. "Sir?"

"Come in and close the door." Harm closed the file he'd been trying to read, detailing the investigation into several of Master Chief Zonne's cohorts.

Harriet did so. She settled primly in one of the chairs before his desk, an armful of papers clasped against her chest. "Is something wrong, sir?"

"I was hoping you could tell me." Harm leaned back in his chair. "I get the feeling both Mac and Sturgis are mad at me, but I don't have the faintest clue why. Is there something going on here that I've missed?"

Harriet's cornflower blue eyes widened in surprise. She blinked several times in rapid succession. "Isn't it obvious, sir?" There was just the slightest hint of censure in her voice.

Harm suppressed a snort. "Obviously not, Harriet. Enlighten me." 

She pressed her lips together for a moment, then nodded. "All right, but just remember that I didn't get involved in this voluntarily."

Harm stared at her.

Harriet shook her head in a gesture of perfect feminine disgust. "It's all about Diane, sir. Now that she's back, everyone knows Colonel Mackenzie's not—" She stopped short, seeming to reconsider her words. "Well, it's just too weird, sir. You'd go crazy trying to maintain... whatever kind of relationship... with both of them." Cheeks flushed, Harriet looked away.

Harm bit his lip as a surge of anger welled up inside him. When he spoke, his voice came out in a dangerously even tone. "Lieutenant, are you trying to tell me that 'everyone'—very few of whom have any business speculating about my personal relationships in the first place—have arbitrarily decided that Diane's being alive means I have to choose between her and Mac?"

Harriet met his eyes without flinching. "Yes, sir, I'd say that's a pretty accurate summary."

"Is this your opinion, too, Lieutenant?"

Harriet drew herself up in her chair. "Permission to speak freely, sir?"

Wary, Harm nodded.

"I think it sucks, sir." Her vehemence startled him. "I'm not going to claim to be objective because Mac is my friend and the godmother of my child, and I don't know Diane really at all. But Mac doesn't deserve to be hurt." Harriet stared defiantly at him. "She's followed you into war zones and into all kinds of crazy schemes that I don't even know the details of, and—"

"Whoa, Harriet." Harm held out a hand to stop her building tirade. In the sudden silence, he stared at her, feeling oddly betrayed. "Why are you assuming I'm just going to turn my back on Colonel Mackenzie?"

"Because you've been in love with Diane since before any of us knew you."

Her response left him speechless. Harriet seized the opportunity to excuse herself and hurried out of his office, leaving Harm staring blankly at the space where she'd been.

#

Harm wandered the confines of his apartment, his steps mimicking the restlessness of his thoughts. _In love with Diane._ The words had struck him like a thunderclap. He still felt dazed, his thoughts cycling endlessly through those four words.

The scary thing was, he didn't know if it was true.

Years ago, when Mac listened to his description of his relationship with Diane, she'd labeled it love, and he'd agreed. It had been such a relief to have someone take his scattered collection of hopes and memories and put a name to them—something simple by which he could forever recall that part of his life, and a person who'd meant a great deal to him. The thought had comforted him in the days following Holbarth's death and had helped him lay his grief to rest at last.

But was it real?

Suddenly, Harm couldn't stand it any more. He spun on his heel, went to gather his jacket and keys, and headed out of the apartment. Maybe it was time to start finding out.

He knocked on Diane's hotel door with a good deal more confidence than he felt. Some part of his mind was screaming at him to run away before someone saw him there and the word could get back to Mac—because hurting her was one of the worst things in the world. Another part argued that, no matter how it turned out, facing his feelings for Diane—figuring them out once and for all—was something he had to do. And a third part simply wanted to be there in the hopes of recapturing something wonderful that, a cynical voice in the back of his mind reminded him, had been mostly in his head in the first place. After all, Diane had been looking at NSA before Holbarth came along.

Diane answered the door in faded sweats bearing the Naval Academy logo. She gave him a surprised look that transformed into a smile before ushering him in.

"Welcome to my humble abode." She made a grand gesture that encompassed the tiny suite, which boasted a small kitchenette in addition to a sitting room partitioned from the bedroom area by a half wall.

Harm looked around. A book on the table beside the couch and a couple of dishes in the sink were the only evidence of occupation. Diane had always had an obsessively neat streak—even worse than his own—which her Navy training had only intensified. Harm immediately found himself comparing the room to the cozy chaos of Mac's apartment and told himself to stop.

He adopted a casual stance belied by the tension he could feel thrumming across his shoulders and down his back. "I hope you don't mind me just stopping by."

Diane shook her head. "Of course not." She paused, and he realized she was just as uncomfortable as he was. "Um... can I get you something to drink?"

"Actually, I was wondering if you wanted to go out."

The moment stretched. Diane gave him a thoroughly startled stare, but eventually the expression gave way to a bright smile. "Sure, I'd love to. Give me a minute to get changed." She turned toward the bedroom, most of which was visible from the living room. Harm watched her for a moment, then turned away.

"So, is this the infamous convertible?" she asked when they descended to the parking lot, where Harm's red Corvette waited.

He chuckled as he held the door for her. "That's the one."

"I'll bet it's no substitute for an F-14."

The hesitation in her tone gave him pause. He turned to study her. Gentle compassion filled her eyes, mixed with curiosity. It took him a moment to remember: mentioning fighters to him had been a dicey business once upon a time. The wounds had been too raw, even years after his ramp strike. Now the memories were only that—rough-edged scars, the only reminder of wounds long since healed. 

He grinned. "Not even close." 

And with that, the uncomfortable moment broke.

"How often do you get to fly?" Diane slid into her seat. Harm closed the door, then went around to the driver's side.

"Not as often as I'd like, but since I invariably get into some kind of trouble every time I do, I suppose I can't complain. I certainly get enough excitement."

"_Every_ time?"

He started to laugh. "I'm not exaggerating. My last flight, I clipped a weather balloon. The time before it I got to play tag with a nuclear missile. Before that was a single engine landing due to battle damage."

Diane was staring at him.

"What?" He turned the key. The Corvette started up immediately, settling into its wonderfully masculine purr. "It's true."

She shook her head, chuckling. "I know. You've been a trouble magnet ever since the Academy. Didn't you think it was odd that a straight-laced kid such as yourself would fall in with a couple of practical jokers like Keeter and I?"

"Are you trying to tell me you guys didn't really like me, you were just being opportunistic?"

Her laughter filled the car. "Of course we were. But then we discovered there was really a kindred soul underneath all that no-nonsense seriousness—" She leaned her head back against the seat, her eyes dancing. "And that's when the fun really started."

Harm couldn't help but smile. His little adventure in Laos as a teenager had stripped away much of his innocence. Diane and Keeter, with their constant joking, pranks and all-around troublemaking, had taught him how to find the fun in life despite that.

For a moment, Harm took his hand off the gearshift and reached over to clasp Diane's fingers in his own. It was a wordless gesture of thanks, but she seemed to understand. She squeezed his hand in return, her smile happy.

"So, where are we going?" she asked after a bit. The lights of the capitol flashed by outside the windows, bright streaks across the glass.

Harm shrugged. "No place in particular. There's a street in Georgetown with a bunch of little clubs and restaurants and such. Lots of live music, pretty good food—it's near the university. I used to hang out there a lot while I was working on my degree. What kind of music are you listening to these days?"

"Do you know any place I could hear a good Celtic ballad?"

He looked at her askance. "You're kidding, right?"

The corners of her eyes crinkled. "Of course I'm kidding. Why don't you surprise me?"

"Okay."

They ended up at a little bistro that served superb penne rigate. The music for the evening turned out to be acoustic guitar, which pleased Harm immensely. They settled into a corner table, comfortably private but with a decent view of the stage. Their conversation ranged across innumerable topics, none of them terribly important. It served only as a medium of contact, a way to enjoy each other's company.

Eventually, though, Harm glanced at his watch and concluded that it was time to bring the evening to an end.

"I hate to say it, but it's getting late, and I, at least, have to get up in the morning," he told her. "Mac and I are going to try to interview some of the people Master Chief Zonne worked with in the Navy Exchange Command. We'll have to get on the road early. Virginia Beach is a three hour drive." 

"Sounds like a long day."

He nodded. "Yeah. But I'm sure we'll be back in time to meet with you and Sturgis for a couple of hours, at least." They had scheduled the evening to go over various strategies for approaching Diane's reinstatement.

Diane gave him a hesitant look. "Um... right. Look, Harm, about that—"

He paused, surprised by her sudden reticence. "Is there a problem?"

"No, no." She shook her head a bit too quickly. "I just—I guess I'm starting to realize that the Navy isn't my only option." Her brown eyes held a wealth of information Harm didn't know how to interpret.

"I thought you wanted to be back at sea," he ventured. 

"I do." She paused. "I mean, I love what I do. I love serving my country." Her eyes took on a faraway glaze. "But I was recently reminded that there are other things in life, too, and maybe I... I don't know—maybe I want to pursue those instead."

"What kind of things?"

She shrugged, her gaze darting to his before jumping away. "Haven't you ever thought of _really_ settling down—having a house and... a family?"

__

With your looks and my brains... Harm cleared his throat self-consciously. "Um, yeah. Sometimes."

Diane gave him a wry, deprecating smile. "Well, I haven't. Not really. But now I have my life back and..." She sighed, looking down. "I want to make sure I do the right things with it."

Harm reached over to give her shoulder an affectionate squeeze. "You will." He released her, clasping his hands together on the table in front of him. "You don't have to make any decisions right now. A lot of what we've been talking about doing will serve to tie up loose ends with the Navy whether you decide you want to be reinstated or not."

She nodded. "Thanks."

"Any time."

The made the drive to her hotel in comfortable silence. Harm offered his arm as they walked up the two flights of stairs to her room. Diane accepted, tucking herself against him and resting her temple against his shoulder. At her door, they paused. Diane slipped her arm free of his grip, but then turned to face him.

"Well... goodnight," she said softly.

Harm stared down into her upturned face—bright, warm eyes, full lips, velvet skin. Memories swirled around him, and, almost without thought, he bent to kiss her. Diane responded immediately, sinking against him in achingly familiar surrender. For just a moment the world went away, lost in the scent of her hair and the passion kindled by her touch.

Harm pulled back after a bit, touching his lips first to her mouth, then each of her eyelids in feathery kisses. Her name hovered on the tip of his tongue, longing for release.

__

...Sarah. 

Sarah... Mac. Horrified, he clamped his mouth shut before he could utter a sound. Diane's head rested lightly against his jaw, her hair catching in the faint stubble there. Her hands had knotted themselves in his shirt and he could feel the softness of her breasts where they pressed against him. Things were so complicated with Mac—so deep and powerful and frightening. His relationship with Diane had always been simple. He wavered. It would be so easy to ignore the urgent warning that clamored in the back of his mind and give in to the here-and-now.

So easy... but wrong.

He raised a hand to cup Diane's cheek, tracing the line of her cheekbone with his thumb. "This isn't the right time to be making this decision, Di."

Disappointment flared in her eyes, but she nodded. "You're probably right." She shifted away from him, bringing a much-needed bit of separation. Harm forced himself to complete it. He released her gently and tried to smile.

"I'll see you tomorrow night?"

She brushed a lock of hair from her face. "I'll be there."

He took another step back as she turned to unlock her door. She slipped inside, closing the door behind her. Harm stared at it for few seconds after it clicked shut. Then, shaking himself, he turned away.


	9. 9

Chapter 9

Mac was nearly out the door of her office when she heard the phone ring behind her. Muttering a low curse, she set down the stack of files in her arms and hurriedly reached for the phone. "Mackenzie."

"Mac, it's me. Are you busy?"

She rolled her eyes. "No, Harm, I'm not busy at all. I stayed back here in D.C. and sent you off to Virginia Beach on your own because I needed a nap, not because I had three other pressing cases. My time is yours."

There was a brief pause on the line. "O-kay, I must have dialed the wrong number. I was trying to reach Sarah Mackenzie, but it sounds like I got the Sarcasm Hotline by mistake."

She blew out her breath in a sigh. "Sorry. Ensign Daniels is driving me crazy—keeps changing his mind about a plea bargain. What can I do for you?"

Harm's voice sounded distant, as if he was working something out in his head even as he spoke. "Just got through interviewing some of the NEXCOM headquarters staff, and I'm not sure what to make of it all yet."

Mac perched on the corner of her desk, shifting the phone to her other ear. "In what way?"

"Well, it's not a big shock that nobody really wants to talk to me. They're all convinced I'm here to broaden the wrongful disposition charges, so getting any new information out of the staff is like pulling teeth. But I did find one person who was a little more useful. Remember Petty Officer Davidson?"

"He was one of Zonne's office assistants. We were going to call him as a character witness, right?"

"Right. He was all gung-ho to stand up for the master chief, because he was absolutely certain that there was no misconduct in that chain. The kid's loyalty to Zonne was bordering on hero worship."

"Does he have new information for us?"

"Not exactly. In fact, he was so tight-lipped that I almost wasn't sure I was talking to the same person from last week. I think he's afraid to say much, which just makes me even more certain that the murder is related to the scandal. All I got out of him was a comment that, quote, 'the bond between shipmates sure isn't what it used to be.' What do you make of that?"

Mac reached across her desk for Zonne's personnel file. "It could be one of two things. Either he's just confirming that it was someone at NEXCOM, or he's being a little more literal and suggesting that it was someone the master chief had previously served with."

"Or both." Harm's voice took on a more focused quality, and she could hear the wheels in his head picking up speed. "Say the master chief came upon information that implicated someone else at NEXCOM. If it was someone close to him, who knew him and his wife well enough to know what prescriptions would be in their medicine cabinet…"

"Yeah," Mac agreed. "Good theory, but no evidence."

"I'll work on the evidence part—I'm already down here. Something still doesn't add up with the sleeping pills. The coroner said the drug was introduced by injection, not orally, so instead of a sloppy fake suicide, we've got a sloppy frame job by our killer. I'm guessing he had the needle with him and ready when he arrived, and swiped a few of Mrs. Zonne's pills on the way out just in case the suicide ploy didn't fly."

"Well, it didn't, but that doesn't make our killer any smarter. They didn't get any prints off the bottle, did they?"

"Nah, we're not that lucky. Anyway, I'm going to wander down to the med center and see what I can find out about missing supplies. Needles are easy to steal, but sedatives should be a little better controlled. I know you're swamped, but if you can get somebody started on looking through ships' records for people who served with Zonne—"

"I'll put Coates on it," she assured him. "I don't want to know where she got her skills, but she's frighteningly good at tracking people down."

"Thanks. I'll probably be late getting back into town, so tell Sturgis and Diane not to wait around for me."

Mac had almost managed to forget that the four of them had planned to go over Diane's case that evening. The idea of putting it off didn't bother her in the slightest. Seeing Harm and Diane together inevitably made her start hyper-analyzing every look and comment that passed between them, which wasn't helpful to her state of mind. "Right. You'll call when you get back, though?"

There was a hint of a smile in his voice. "As you wish."

At that, she instinctively smiled back, rolling her eyes. "Whatever, sailor. Talk to you tonight."

After hanging up, it suddenly occurred to her that her partner was three hours away and tracking a killer who might now be all too aware of his intentions. Maybe it hadn't been such a great idea for him to make this trip alone.

Mac consciously told herself to stop worrying. She'd never known a lawyer with better combat instincts than Harm, save for possibly herself. He could take care of himself—he always did.

Well, almost always. She sighed and stood up, going to the doorway. "Coates, I've got a job for you."

#

It was early evening by the time Harm left the medical center, and he was no closer to any answers. Out of frustration, he'd read the riot act to the lieutenant in charge of the drug lock-up after discovering that the records were inaccurate going back at least a month. The young woman had been appropriately contrite about the oversight, and nervous enough that he'd eventually taken pity on her and not filed a reprimand. Still, it left him with no better leads than he'd had when he started.

__

Take a deep breath, Rabb, and start over. He headed for the O-club to get a bite to eat, and took the casefile and his laptop with him. Over a sandwich and some cold French fries, he went back through the information he and Mac had gathered throughout the past couple of weeks.

The homicide cops had been through Zonne's home computer, looking for any messages or files that might shed some light on who he'd been talking to recently. They'd copied everything in the inbox, trash can and 'sent-mail' folders, and Harm had gotten a copy of the whole thing just this morning. He hadn't been looking forward to going through the huge file, but his other options seemed to be rapidly diminishing.

Tuition statements for the Zonne children… probably not relevant. Regular correspondence from a sister in California, then a few messages of support from old Navy buddies… well, those might be more interesting. All of them seemed to be coming from the far reaches of the globe, though. Then there was a thread with no subject identified, coming from a free, net-based email account. Harm clicked it open and scanned down the screen.

__

Why don't we get together and talk this through? I can come up next weekend, or something. At least so you'll understand where I'm coming from. This could work out better then either of us thought. You just have to trust me, all right?

Harm frowned, beginning to get a clearer picture of the situation. Maybe Zonne did have information on one of his colleagues, and that person had tried to bribe him into keeping quiet. When that failed, he'd taken him out of the way more permanently.

The message was dated two days before the murder, and the address was jr206@freenet.com. Tracking down the owner of the address probably wouldn't be much fun, but he might at least be able to get an IP address to match it. He was about to get out his phone to call Bud when it hit him.

__

J.R.

"Oh, man," he whispered aloud. If those initials meant what he suspected they meant, this case was getting stranger all the time.

He shut the laptop and hurriedly paid for his meal. His mind churned fiercely throughout the walk back to the medical center's parking garage, where he'd left his SUV. Sliding into the driver's seat, he was too preoccupied with the possibility he'd just uncovered to notice the shadow in his backseat—until he felt an arm snake around his throat and the jab of a needle at the base of his neck.

"Sorry, Commander," said a low voice as his vision rapidly faded to black. "You've reached your limit on questions today."

#

A knock at the conference room door brought Mac sharply out of her work. "Enter."

Diane stepped inside, looking hesitant. "Hi," she began simply.

"Diane, hi. I left you a message that Harm was going to be late getting back. Did you get it?"

"Yeah, I did. I thought I might as well come by anyway, in case you or Sturgis had something to get started on." She looked a little embarrassed. "Okay, to be honest, I'm bored, and I was hoping that I might be able to make myself useful around here for a while."

Mac smiled tiredly. "I never turn down free help. Especially since Sturgis had to take an emergency meeting with a client down at the brig. Take a seat."

Diane moved over to the table, which was strewn with files. "What's all this?"

"Full crew complement for every ship our murder victim ever served on. A lot of them are too old to be computerized, so I ended up with a sequoia's worth of paper. Seems the man spent half of his thirty years on carriers, so we've got quite the list."

"And you're looking for what, exactly?"

"A link to someone on _this_ list." Mac indicated the list directly in front of her, marked up with three different highlighters. "It's mind-numbing and infuriating, and you're welcome to join in."

"Sounds lovely." Diane slid into a chair across from her and opened the closest file. "Hey, weird. _I'm_ probably on this list. I was on the _Truman_ in 1992."

"No kidding? Remember any of these people?"

"The odds aren't good, but I'll give it a shot." She started to scan the list. "It's not like I was well-acquainted with the whole crew. We crypto officers weren't exactly the prom queens of the boat, you know? We were more like the math club."

"And the pilots were the football players," Mac theorized with a knowing look. Diane glanced up at her and flashed a grin.

"Something like that. Thought they were hot stuff, but they basically got issued one brain per squadron."

"Even Harm?"

"No, Harm's made a career out of being the exception to the rule, hasn't he?" Diane shrugged a little. "There's always one football player who gets straight A's, I guess. Make no mistake, though—he had an attitude. A lot of it was just for show, but he had it."

"I can believe that." Mac tried to smother the twinge of resentment that was beginning to surface. Hearing this woman explain to her what Harm had been like, as if she didn't know him at all… _But you didn't know him. Not then. That's fourteen years she has over you, like it or not._ "He really should have called by now. Let me just check in with him, all right?"

Diane lowered her gaze to the roster in front of her, and Mac wondered briefly if she'd sounded just a little too possessive just then. Dismissing the thought, she picked up the phone and dialed.

"The cellular customer you are trying to reach is not available…"

Mac hung up on the recording, unnerved. "I can't remember the last time he let his batteries run down."

"Maybe he turned his phone off?"

"Uh-uh. That phone hasn't been turned off since he got it."

Diane's brow wrinkled. "You don't think he's in trouble, do you?"

Mac shook her head, as if trying to clear it. "It's probably nothing. Let's give him a little while before we jump to that."

There was another knock at the door, and Jennifer Coates stuck her head in. "Colonel, I found something that might be some help."

Mac blinked. "Coates, you're still here? It's 1946."

"This sounded important, ma'am. It's not like I had a hot date after work." The young woman offered a self-deprecating smile.

"Come in. Diane Schonke, this is Petty Officer Coates."

"Nice to meet you, ma'am," Coates said formally.

"I don't know if I rate a 'ma'am' at the moment, but it's nice to meet you, too." Diane offered a hand, which Coates shook. Mac watched the petty officer's features waver for just an instant at the incongruity of hearing two very different voices come out of two very similar faces.

"So what have you got?"

Coates blinked and quickly regained her composure. "Right. Uh, I got a hold of some of the master chief's performance reports. I figured that since a lot of the NEXCOM staff are officers, maybe the killer was his rater at some point along the line."

"Good thinking, Jen," Mac said sincerely, taking the folder she proffered. Coates flushed at the praise. "Now go home, would you? It's late."

"Yes, ma'am." The petty officer disappeared through the doorway, and Mac opened the folder. Diane looked over long enough to notice the name printed at the top, and her eyes widened.

"Zonne? As in Senior Chief Anthony Zonne?"

Mac's head jerked up. "Master Chief now, or at least until a few days ago. You knew him?"

"Kind of. He was our master-at-arms on the _Truman_. He's your murder victim?" When the other woman nodded, Diane leaned back in her chair, stunned. "Wow. It's not like I played cards with him every night, but he was a good guy. He took care of the security issues for the crypto group, and put up with a lot more from all of us punk lieutenants than any NCO should have to. I think I heard that he got picked up to assist the battle group staff after that."

Mac paged through the stack of EPRs in front of her until she came to one marked USS _Harry S. Truman_. When she saw the signature at the bottom of the page, a terrible truth clicked into place.

"Captain James S. Rupert," she breathed. "Now Rear Admiral Rupert, commander of the Navy Exchange Service Command. He was Zonne's CO at the time all the goods were disappearing from Navy exchanges."

Diane's dark eyes widened. "You don't think this admiral killed him, do you?"

"It's worse than that. I think he killed him, and I think Harm had to inform him that he'd be in town investigating this today." Mac stood up from the table as the color drained away from Diane's face.

"Oh, God…" To her credit, Diane didn't fall to pieces when the realization struck. She kept her balance and got to her feet as well. "What do we do?"

"I don't know, but I think I'm going to Virginia Beach."

"Then so am I." Mac spun around, primed to object, but the fire in the other woman's eyes temporarily silenced her. "Hey, this is Harm we're talking about. If someone could get the drop on him, they're obviously not someone to mess around with. You could use my help—if nothing else, I'm very good with computers and security systems." She flashed a tense smile as if acknowledging the fact that she was trying to sell herself as an asset. "Besides that, there's no way in hell I'm just going to sit around here when the best friend I've got is in danger."

Mac surrendered, gaining a grudging admiration for her companion. "All right, come on. We've got a long drive, and we're going to need it to come up with a plan of attack." A bizarre idea occurred to her. "Wait a minute. I just thought of a way to make this work." 

Then she stopped dead, realizing just what that plan would entail.


	10. 10

Chapter 10

Consciousness returned to Harmon Rabb with reluctance. Hearing came first, and for a while he listened to the sounds of someone moving about without really processing them in any meaningful way. Scent followed, bringing a briny, rotten-smelling tang to his nose. Eventually, some semblance of memory trickled back, and he forced his uncooperative body to respond.

It was a few seconds before he realized that there were bindings preventing his arms from moving. When he pried his eyes open, he found himself sitting in a metal chair, his wrists bound to a pipe that ran along the wall behind him. The room was dim and stark: if he'd had just a little more awareness going for him, he would have immediately identified it as a storeroom. As it was, his brain could only process the fact that he was cold.

"I should have figured I'd have to up the dosage for you, Commander," came a voice he knew he should be able to identify. "You're in better shape than Zonne was. Thing is, I'm running low on supplies, so I was trying to be conservative."

Harm lifted his head from his chest and focused carefully on the speaker. "Rupert," he managed, the name slurring slightly. "What–?"

"Loose ends," the admiral answered easily, with a casual shrug. "I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to find you poking around in this case. I'll admit that I didn't devote the proper amount of planning to taking care of the master chief. To be honest, I really didn't think it was going to come to that. I thought Tony would go along once he understood how much he had to gain by it. I guess I misjudged him."

As Harm's control began to return, so did his contempt. "I'd say the whole Navy misjudged you."

The older man rolled his eyes. "Full of misguided bravado, aren't you, Rabb? Must be the wings. At any rate, I didn't intend for it to escalate like this, but I can tell you right now that I'm not going to Leavenworth. So whatever you know or don't know is going to have to stay your little secret. I just haven't figured out what kind of accident you're going to suffer in order to ensure that. Got any ideas?"

Harm remained silent, knowing that none of the scathing epithets that were coming to mind would make much of an impact on this man. Before either of them could speak again, a signal from Rupert's cell phone shattered the silence.

"If you yell, you're a dead man," Rupert warned, patting the sidearm at his belt.

"Aren't I a dead man anyway?" Harm remarked acidly.

"Okay, I'll rephrase. If you yell, whoever's on the other end of this phone is a dead man." That shut the prisoner up, so the admiral reached for his phone. "This is Admiral Rupert. No, Colonel, you're not disturbing me at all. It is a bit late to be working on your investigation, though, isn't it?"

A hard knot formed in Harm's stomach as he began to realize who was on the phone. He clamped down on his emotions, but not before Rupert could pick up on the reaction.

"I believe Commander Rabb was interviewing my staff earlier today. Have you talked to him recently? Oh? Well, the commander struck me as a tireless worker—I'm sure he's knee-deep in files somewhere and forgot to turn on his phone." He paused, listening. 

"I'm already on my way home, Colonel. If you'd like, you're welcome to come by my office first thing in the morning. The commander will probably be there as well, but if he isn't, I can show you what he's been looking at." He nodded. "All right, then. Goodnight, Colonel."

He clicked the phone off, enjoying Harm's struggle. "So how much did you tell Colonel Mackenzie?" he asked, almost rhetorically, as he strolled around the room. "Is she coming down here just because she couldn't reach you, or does she know something that should concern me?"

"I haven't told her a thing," Harm claimed—truthfully—but a little too quickly.

Rupert quirked an eyebrow. "You know, I thought you two were a little too close when you came down to depose me for the trial. Maybe that's how this should go—lovers' quarrel ended with firearms, or something."

"If she figured it out, what's to stop other people from doing the same?" Harm demanded, ignoring the jab. "Are you just going to keep killing everyone who tries to investigate this?"

"Won't have to. By the time anyone has a chance to cast much doubt on the circumstances surrounding your death, I'll be long gone. Four and a half million buys a lot in the Caribbean."

"Look, Rupert," Harm said, hating the desperation that was clearly audible in his voice. "You can stall Colonel Mackenzie long enough to make your getaway. She probably doesn't even have anything on you. You don't need to bring her into this."

Rupert watched him with detached curiosity, as if he were a museum piece or perhaps a circus sideshow. "If she puts as high a premium on your life as you do on hers," he replied, "I think I'd better."

When the needle came at him again, Harm didn't bother to fight it. It would be a losing battle in any case. Instead, he used his last moments of consciousness to hope fervently that this sick bastard was using up all of the drug supply on him, leaving none for Mac.

#

"Will he notice that my voice is different from yours?"

Mac shook her head. "I only met him once. If he didn't pick up the difference on the phone a minute ago, he won't pick it up now."

"All the same, I think I'll try to fake it a little." Diane adjusted her Marine uniform, squaring her shoulders. "How do I look?"

"You're kidding, right?"

"Well, yeah."

Mac stared at her doppelganger, both pleased and alarmed. A blow dryer and little amateur trimming had taken most of the bounce out of Diane's hair, and though it remained a bit darker than Mac's, the difference was hardly noticeable. She doubted anyone—not even her closest friends—would immediately be able to tell that it wasn't her.

Diane turned to look at Mac, unconsciously smoothing the green skirt with her palms. "What do you think Admiral Rupert's going to do when I—uh, when _you_—show up at his house?"

"Panic, hopefully. He's our only link to Harm." She paused. "Provided he really is the killer." 

Diane looked down at her shoes. "Do you think Harm's still alive?" It was hardly more than a whisper, a desperate hope from a woman who couldn't bear to lose him. The fear in her voice echoed Mac's feelings so exactly that she sucked in her breath.

Closing her eyes, Mac forced her emotions back under control. "He's alive," she said with as much confidence as she could muster. _He has to be._ "And we're going to get him."

They made the trip down to Virginia Beach in near silence. Mac drove, while Diane fidgeted in the passenger seat. Mac had left a message for the Admiral on the off chance that, if things went _really_ sour, he'd know where to start looking for them.

Their first stop was at a local Hertz, where Mac rented a dark sedan. Then, while Diane kept a cautious watch, she transferred her sidearm, extra clips, and the hunting rifle that usually collected dust in the back of her closet to the front seat of the new car. Her binoculars were slung around her neck.

"Now remember," she told Diane. "I'll keep you in sight the entire time. Try to keep the encounter low key." She stared directly into the other woman's eyes. "And if you get scared, get out."

Diane nodded jerkily. "I understand." She took a deep breath and released it slowly. "Have you ever done this kind of thing before?" she asked after a moment.

"Like what?"

"Playing bait."

Mac bit her lip. "No." She cracked a strange smile. "I've been shot, kidnapped, held hostage, ejected from an exploding fighter... but no, never bait."

Diane shook her head ruefully. "You and Harm are a matched pair."

Mac blinked, taken aback. She was certain it was a random comment, not meant to be deep or meaningful, but Mac couldn't help the warmth that spread through her. "I guess so. We certainly get into enough trouble together."

Diane looked up at that, her gaze thoughtful, but didn't comment. After a moment, she made a last adjustment to her borrowed uniform and smoothed the hair around her face. "Well, wish me luck."

"Good luck," Mac answered. She was surprised to discover she meant it, without reservation. Whatever else Diane might be, she was a good person, and a loyal and courageous friend. If she had to give Harm up to another woman, she mused, she probably couldn't have found a better one. Not that that would make it any easier...

Forcing the thoughts away, Mac went to the rental car and got in. One space over, Diane slid into the driver's seat of Mac's red Corvette. They shared a look through the windows. The most important thing was getting Harm back alive. 

#

It was very nearly midnight when Diane knocked on Admiral Rupert's front door. The highly polished wood glinted in the abundant moonlight until a light came on in the entryway, destroying the silvery effect. Footsteps followed the light, and then the door opened. James Rupert stared at her, his expression guarded.

Diane was grateful now for the years of covert operation. One thing she did know how to do was play her part.

"Admiral, I'm so sorry to bother you," she began in a fair imitation of Mac's throaty voice. "I know it's late."

"I take it you haven't heard from Commander Rabb?" Rupert stepped back, gesturing for her to enter. "Please come in, Colonel."

Slipping her cover from her head, Diane did so. She hadn't told Mac how good it felt to be in uniform again, even if it was the wrong color.

"I didn't wake you, did I?" She eyed his clothes, which didn't look like they'd been hastily donned. In fact, the dark jeans and heavy work boots looked pretty dirty, and for a terrifying moment she wondered if they'd gotten that way in the process of burying a body.

Rupert shook his head, smiling, but the expression never reached his eyes. "Not at all, Colonel. I'm a night owl by nature." 

Diane accepted that and pressed on before the churning in her stomach could get any worse. "I appreciate you seeing me, sir. I'm very worried about Commander Rabb. He was supposed to call, and it's not like him to forget." 

Rupert moved to close the door behind her. Diane swallowed convulsively, feeling suddenly trapped.

"I assume you've checked the VOQ and the O-club, et cetera?" he asked, ushering her toward the interior of the house.

Diane nodded as she followed him into a well-appointed kitchen. Mac had called both places while they were en route. "He had dinner at the O-club, but never returned to his quarters."

Rupert retrieved a couple of glasses from a cabinet, setting them down on the counter in front of her. He raised an eyebrow. "You sound convinced there's been some kind of foul play, Colonel." He sounded vaguely affronted. "I realize you're investigating a crime that, sadly enough, someone in my chain of command might be involved in, but it's barely midnight. What makes you think he isn't out enjoying the night life?" He cocked his head, his expression turning sly. "Or is it unthinkable that the commander might be enjoying himself without your company?"

The flush of anger that stained Diane's cheeks could only incriminate her in Rupert's eyes. But she didn't miss the deep irony in the situation as she replied, "My relationship with Commander Rabb isn't an issue here, Admiral. Very likely, _someone_ in your chain of command is a killer, and that makes the commander's disappearance more than a little alarming." She took a deep breath, wondering if she was pushing too hard. "Now, is there anything at all you can remember that might help me locate him?"

Rupert rummaged around in one of the drawers, emerging with a snub-nosed revolver, which he pointed at her chest. "Actually, Colonel, I can take you right to him." 


	11. 11

Chapter 11

Harm had been awake for a little while when he heard the sounds of footsteps outside his makeshift prison. His head throbbed, sending red streaks shooting through the darkness surrounding him, but the pain had been receding by degrees until it was almost bearable. He heard a metallic rattle—a chain through the door, he guessed—and then a blinding shaft of light speared through the dark. He flinched, instinctively turning his head away. 

When he turned back, a jumbled figure filled the doorway. It immediately resolved itself into two as Rupert thrust someone into the room. Harm's heart lurched. The new captive fell forward heavily, landing on hip and shoulder with a muffled cry of pain. Harm caught a glint of silver at the collar before Rupert's movements allowed the light to sweep across his captive's face. Mac looked up at him, her brown eyes wide and frightened. She'd been gagged and her hands bound behind her. Her pantyhose were gone, her bare feet tied at the ankle. No doubt Rupert had known the slippery hose would give her some advantage in trying to wriggle out of her bonds. Mac's uniform skirt rode unseemly high on her legs, and Harm caught a glimpse of the long, bloodied abrasion on one knee from the hard landing.

With a wordless growl Harm surged forward, yanking at his bonds, but the ropes remained tightly wound about his wrists and forearms. Whatever else Rupert might be, he was a sailor who knew his knots.

Rupert shook his head in mock exasperation. "You're a hard man to keep unconscious, Commander. I'm going to have to start bashing you over the head if you don't settle down."

Harm took the hint and went still. "What are you going to do with us?" he demanded after a moment.

Rupert shrugged, seemingly satisfied with his capitulation. "I haven't entirely decided yet, but I'm working on it." He grinned. "Don't worry, I'll let you know." And with that, he left, taking the light with him. Harm heard the chain rattling as he secured the door, and then the fading sound of his steps.

Eventually, there was nothing but silence and the faint sound of water lapping against the shore. Harm could smell the ocean—a comfortingly familiar mix of salt, seaweed and fish that had accompanied much of his life. As his eyes adjusted, vague shapes appeared out of the darkness. The adrenaline began to fade, leaving him lightheaded.

"Mac? Are you okay?"

Her reply was an unintelligible muddle around the gag, but even that was enough to reassure him. His relief soured almost immediately. "Good, then remind me to kill you once we get out of this."

"_Mmph?_"

Harm couldn't help but smile at the note of outrage in her voice. "You heard me. Listen, Sundance, you're supposed to get me out of situations like this, not join me in them." His humor faded as he leaned his head back against the pipe to which he'd been tied and closed his eyes. "Besides, my tactical skills go to pot when you're in danger." He snorted wryly. "As I'm sure you've noticed."

"Marm—" 

At the warning note in her voice, he decided to drop it. "Never mind, Mac. Let's just concentrate on getting out of here. You don't by chance have some Marine trick up your sleeve for getting out of these ropes, do you?"

He heard a muted rustling as she tested her bonds, then her shadowy form shook its head. Harm sighed.

#

Mac prowled the expanse of ten-foot fence topped with concertina wire, searching for a way into the marina. Rupert—with Diane—had driven in through a cardkey operated security gate, making it impossible for her to follow in her vehicle. Every few steps she muttered another curse. The 911 emergency operator she'd talked to was probably still checking her identity. After that, she could hope for reinforcements, but by then both Harm and Diane might be dead.

__

I can't believe I was such an idiot! The bolt cutters, which resided in the toolbox with her tire changing and emergency roadside equipment, remained in the trunk of her Corvette. Beyond the fence, a number of buildings—more like sturdy sheds—marched in rows down to the water, where piers and boathouses intermingled. The marina housed several hundred boats, Mac guessed. They bobbed and swayed at their moorings in the gentle Virginia Beach tide. The security for a civilian marina seemed a little extreme until she recalled that they were in the same channel as the Newport News shipyards, where she knew the _Stennis_ was currently in dry dock for overhaul.

Finding no better solution to her dilemma, she went back to the rental car and pulled one of the floor mats out of the front seat. She was going to have to climb the fence, despite the coils of razor wire. Hopefully the heavy rubber mat would be enough to keep her from getting too badly mangled.

Slinging the mat over one shoulder, she began to climb. The chain links dug into the joints of her fingers. She scrabbled for purchase with the thick toes of her boots, making the fence jingle. Reaching the top, she awkwardly braced herself, then slung the mat off her shoulder and through the coils. That cleared a narrow passage through which to thread her head and shoulders. A sharp barb caught her shoulder as she shoved herself forward. She gasped, wriggling to try to free the painful hook from her skin, but was unsuccessful. Finally, she gritted her teeth and let her weight carry her headfirst over the fence. The barb traced a line of fire across her back as she tumbled down the other side.

Mac tucked her shoulder as she fell. She landed hard, but rolled to her feet, catching at the chain links with one hand to steady herself. She flexed her shoulders to assess the injury. The motion burned, but she didn't think it was serious.

Quickly checking her sidearm, she set off in the general direction Rupert had gone.

#

"Where are we going?" Harm asked as Admiral Rupert jabbed him in the back with the muzzle of his gun. The weapon immediately returned to its usual position—pressed against Mac's temple. Rupert had the other arm wrapped around her slender waist, nearly lifting her off her feet with each step as he dragged her along. He'd crossed her ankles before trussing them, making it impossible for her to manage more than an awkward hop. Harm's ankle bonds resembled a horse hobble—a figure eight of rope that allowed him to move forward in little mincing steps. 

They emerged from the storage building into a brightly moonlit night. Ahead of them, Harm could see a row of small boathouses that undoubtedly sheltered pleasure boats or perhaps personal watercraft. They weren't very big. Beyond them, the ocean lay black and mysterious, broken only by an occasional silvered ripple. 

"Keep moving," Rupert said, poking him once more. Harm complied for lack of any better alternative. Mac's lack of resistance left him feeling deeply uncertain. He'd expected her to turn into a polecat as soon as Rupert freed Harm from the chair where he'd been bound, providing him an opportunity to catch the admiral off guard. But she remained docile through the entire process, and even now endured Rupert's rough handling with no more bravado than an occasional grunt of pain. Without her active cooperation, Harm didn't think they stood a chance of getting away. He could only hope she was trying to lull their captor into a false sense of security, and to that end he tried to keep an eye out, watching for the circumstances she would pick to make her move.

Their little caravan proceeded to the door of an older and rather rickety-looking boathouse, its boards warped and weathered. Rupert released Mac, allowing her to slump against the wall while he knelt to light a small kerosene lamp. Raising it awkwardly in his gun hand, he worked the combination lock that secured the door. Harm watched, memorizing the combination in case it might do him some good later on. 

For a moment, he glanced past Rupert toward Mac, hoping to catch her eye, but her gaze was cast groundward. He growled to himself in silent frustration. _Come on, Mac! What's wrong with you?_

Rupert swung the door open. Harm was immediately overwhelmed by the thick chemical smell that rolled out of the building. Polyurethane. The owner of the boathouse must have been waterproofing recently.

Switching the lamp to his other hand, Rupert leveled the gun at Harm and gestured for him to enter. Harm did so, hearing the hollow echo as his shoes moved from dirt to wooden boards. The floor of the boathouse extended about eight feet past the edge of the water with a cutout that housed a small speedboat. The far wall had a large doorway cut in it for the boat to pass, which was covered by an ordinary garage door. The tracks arched over his head, with a garage door opener mounted just beyond. Harm wondered for a moment if Rupert planned to take them out and drown them.

He walked forward a few feet and turned, just in time to see Rupert shove Mac inside. She hopped once then fell headlong into him, knocking him off his feet as well. Harm landed on his back with Mac atop him. The rough wood dug painfully into his knuckles and elbows, eliciting a hiss of pain. He lifted his head to look at Rupert.

Highlighted by the light from the lamp, the admiral's face looked somewhat demonic. Then Rupert grinned, adding to the impression. "I gave up on the lover's quarrel idea, I'm afraid. Too hard to make convincing." He shrugged. "A tragic accident isn't nearly as poetic, but I'm afraid it will have to do. A shame you two had to pick such a dangerous place for some time alone." 

With that, he raised the lantern, turning it on its side, then dropped it onto a small pile of open cans that sat just inside the door. The lantern's glass shattered. The flame inside guttered, but then flared as it touched the remaining waterproofing inside the cans. A brilliant flame shot upward like a torch. It transferred almost immediately to the nearby wall, climbing quickly toward the ceiling.

Satisfied, Rupert withdrew, closing the door behind him. A moment later, Harm heard a steady pounding at the base of the door and realized with a sense of horror that the other man had wedged something under the door to keep it from being opened.

Through her gag, Mac uttered a muffled squeak of pure terror. Harm stared at her, his shock giving way to anger. "Snap out of it, Marine!"

Harm raised his torso abruptly, dumping her off his chest. "Roll over, Mac. I need to get to the ropes on your arms."

She did so, while Harm struggled to mirror her posture and scoot close enough to catch the ropes in his fingers. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the flames spreading across the ceiling beams like some kind of malevolent creature. Smoke grayed the air, but so far it was thin enough down near the floor to allow them to breathe. Harm's lungs itched, though. There wouldn't be air much longer... that is, if the fire didn't get to them first. 

The first stirrings of panic tightened his chest. He shoved it down, forcing himself to concentrate on the feel of the knots beneath his fingers. He was a sailor, too. He knew he could identify the intricate twists, and therefore undo them, if he could stay focused on the task. But the image of Mac burning to death kept creeping around the edges of his awareness, terrifying him. He eyed the slick fiberglass side of the boat where it disappeared beneath the edge of the planking on which they lay. The gap between the two was only six inches, but he suspected there was a little space on the other side as well. If nothing else, he and Mac could slip into the water to avoid the flames. 

__

And then what? Drown? Mac couldn't walk—or swim—and without his hands free, he couldn't carry her. The boat door didn't quite go all the way down to the water, so he knew they could escape that way—if they could get out of their ropes.

The first knot gave way beneath his fingers and he crowed in pure delight. "We're going to make it out of this, Mac," he added, needing to hear the words as well. The fire had spread across the length of a second wall, sheeting it in orange. Luckily, it was the one on the far side of the boat, which shielded them from the worst of the heat, but he knew time was running out in a hurry.

"Marm?"

"Yeah, Mac?" He kept most of his attention on the knots. The second one started to loosen.

She sighed, sounding exasperated. "Marm, mimemotmap."

"What?" The second knot gave way. The third one, his fingers told him, was nasty. It was also the last. "Hang on. Just one more."

Flames covered the ceiling now, the crinkling, crackling sound loud enough to drown out the lapping of water directly beneath them. Harm's eyes began to tear. Behind him, Mac gave in to a fit of coughing as the smoke grew increasingly acrid. Bits of debris, much of it still burning, fell around them. They sizzled when they plopped in the water, and either died out or started a new little fire when they didn't. 

"Aaagh!" Harm couldn't help a cry of pain as a burning fragment dropped onto his pant leg. 

"Marm!"

Purely by reflex he rolled away, scrubbing his calf against the boards to extinguish the flame. As he turned back, he glanced down, but couldn't see anything except a charred hole and a glimpse of skin beneath. The spot throbbed to the frantic beat of his heart.

Well and truly terrified now, he grabbed the ropes binding Mac's hands and pried desperately at the last knot. The heat was stifling, searing his lungs with each breath.

"Mac, when this gives, I want you to get out of here. Forget about me." Dying wouldn't be so bad if he knew she was safe.

"Mo!"

"Yes! Don't argue with me. There isn't enough time!" And with that, he caught the proper loop of rope and pulled the knot free.

Mac sat up and yanked her hands forward, flinging the ropes away as if they were snakes. She immediately began to work on the ropes around her ankles. A sharp crack of sundering wood made her flinch, but she didn't look up as the far corner of the roof collapsed. The two adjacent walls began to lean inward.

Kicking, Mac freed her feet. 

"Hurry," Harm urged her as she leapt to her feet. 

Mac yanked the gag from her mouth, letting it hang around her neck. Another coughing fit grabbed her and she doubled over. She staggered forward a step, reaching out to brace herself against the side of the speedboat. It slid sideways about a foot, coming to rest against the far side of the cut with a shuddering thump that Harm felt through the boards beneath him. She leaned over the edge, reaching inside and rummaging around.

"Mac—" He didn't get any farther as he dissolved into a coughing fit. He curled up around the spasms, fighting to breathe.

When he came back to himself, she knelt behind him, a thick-bladed utility knife in her hand. He felt her sawing at the ropes, and winced as the blade slipped accidentally across his skin. But then the ropes parted, and all he could think about was getting away from the inferno that was about to engulf them. Grabbing the knife from her hand, he hacked at the ropes on his ankles. An inhuman roar and a sudden gust of hot air were his only warning that time had run out. 

With reflexes born of many desperate situations, he grabbed Mac around the waist and rolled both of them into the water.


	12. 12

Chapter 12

Mac saw the first flames as she slipped along the fence toward the row of boathouses. A spike of terror rammed straight through her, and for a moment the decision that lay before her was paralyzing. Take off at a sprint and hope a solution would present itself, or take a moment to call again for help? Instantly she made the choice and reached for her phone, still moving as quietly as possible.

"My name is Colonel Mackenzie, and I just talked to you a few minutes ago," she said under her breath before the 911 operator could even get a word out. "I need the fire department at the Windward Marina right now. I don't have time to tell you the nature of the emergency. Something is burning, and someone is trying to get away with murder. That's all I've got for you. Just get me that backup."

Shoving the phone back into her pocket, she took off toward the boathouse in question as the flames licked higher across its walls. It wasn't a sturdy structure, she could tell. It wouldn't be long before the fire brought it down. _Come on, Harm, do that hero thing_…

A shadow caught the corner of her eye, and her blood went cold as she recognized the figure moving away from the fire. Mac reacted instinctively, drawing her sidearm and stepping out just as the figure neared. No way was such a despicable man going to simply walk away from this crime. "Hold it!"

Before she'd even finished speaking, Rupert had his own weapon out. The flickering light prevented him from seeing anything more than her silhouette, but his aim was steady. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me. Drop your weapon. I'm not alone."

"You certainly look it to me."

"In five minutes there will be more flashing lights around this place than Las Vegas has on its best night. I'm giving you an opportunity to live through this. You'd be wise to take it."

Hesitation was evident in the admiral's stance as he attempted to place the voice. "Who's making the offer?"

Mac stepped closer, and had the empty satisfaction of seeing Rupert go instantly pale. "How in the hell?" he demanded, briefly jerking his gaze back to the burning building in an attempt to figure out how she'd freed herself.

"Yeah, I'm a regular Houdini." Her voice was level, but edged in steel. "Did you not hear me before? I said _drop it_."

"And then what, Colonel? You going to stand guard over me while that place burns? I notice the commander isn't with you. Did you leave him behind? Are you going to let him die just so you can take me in? Not in the finest traditions of the Corps, is it?"

"Spoken like a swabbie," Mac fired back, allowing her anger to mask the panic that was rising along with the level of the flames. Over Rupert's shoulder, she could see the boathouse beginning to list to one side, and she hastily composed both a plan of attack and a fervent prayer that she wasn't condemning Harm and Diane to a fiery death by her actions.

When the structure collapsed with a sharp _crack_, the sound startled Rupert enough to give Mac a brief advantage. She took it, firing twice into his lower quarter. The first bullet struck his calf, the second his knee. The admiral collapsed with a cry and lay, writhing, as the first sirens neared their location. His gun tumbled from his fingers, landing in the dirt with a dull thump.

"One for each of them," Mac told him coldly as she kicked the weapon out of his reach. "Would you like one for Anthony Zonne, too?"

A half-dozen squad cars came screaming into the marina, spilling officers onto the gravel roads and docks. "Secure," Mac shouted to them. Getting out her ID, she waved them over, finally letting her weapon fall to her side. "This man set that blaze over there, and there are probably two people still inside."

She didn't hear whatever response the officer in charge gave as she turned back to the burning rubble of the boathouse. _Maybe they got out somehow. Maybe they fell into the water. They could have fallen into the water, couldn't they? Please, God…_

Unconsciously, she took a step toward what remained of the dock, watching helplessly as the fire crew swarmed over it. Then something moved out in the inky darkness of the water, and her attention snapped toward the motion. The unmistakable forms of two people dragging themselves onto the nearby boat ramp nearly made her legs buckle in sheer relief. 

"Thank you," she whispered to the night air, and started toward them.

#

Gasping for breath, Harm leaned against the nearest post, drawing his partner into a tight embrace. "You okay?" he rasped, the combination of smoke and salt water grating on his lungs like sandpaper. Mac nodded silently, huddling against him and shivering. "Good. Now for the love of God, don't do anything like that ever again, you got that?"

Her head jerked slightly, but her voice remained hoarse and muffled by his blackened, soaked uniform shirt. "What– "

"Mac, when have I ever said or done anything to make you believe I'd be okay with you getting hurt for my sake? Have I ever given you the impression that I'd be anything less than devastated by such a thing? Why in the _hell_ did you come after me?"

She turned her head so she could be more clearly heard. "I had to."

Something in her voice, and in her tone, stopped him cold. Harm pulled back and stared at her, seeing the difference in her eyes as if for the first time. Everything clicked into place at that moment: all of her actions made more sense… and less.

Diane offered a halfhearted smile of apology. "Surprise," she said softly.

Thunderstruck, he could only watch in disbelief as Mac hurried down the ramp toward them, clad in BDUs and a sidearm holster. "I'm sorry," she said breathlessly, dropping to her knees beside them. "I tried to follow him into the marina, but the security's too good. It took a while to find a way in. Are you guys okay?"

"He's burned," Diane said, tugging at the ruined fabric of Harm's trousers. The swollen mark, forgotten until then, began to sting.

"And bleeding," Mac added, reaching toward the rough gash across his wrist.

Harm looked from one woman to the other, trying to work out the situation in his mind and failing entirely. 

"This has been the weirdest freaking week," he muttered, sagging back against the post. "If it's okay with you ladies, I'm just going to pass out now, okay?"

Mac caught the front of his shirt in her fist. "Don't even think about it, sailor. We've got a monster debrief ahead of us." 

She turned as a pair of paramedics approached them. "These two could use some oxygen," she directed somewhat unnecessarily, edging herself out of the way.

Harm noticed the faint wince as she moved, and immediately pushed away the mask being offered to him. "Mac, what's up?"

She shrugged off his concern. "Nothing big. It's just that my alternate point of entry into the marina involved some concertina wire."

Diane motioned one of the medics over to Mac, taking a long pull from the oxygen mask she'd been given. "Well, at least we won't have to find ourselves somewhere to spend the night," she pointed out between breaths. The other two looked at her, and she shrugged. "The ER will probably be all too happy to keep us."

"Normally I'd argue that just on principle, but right now I'll take any bed I can get." Harm closed his eyes for a moment, finally beginning to see the evening's events with a semblance of clarity. "The two of you did this together," he stated quietly, still trying to wrap his mind around the idea. "You figured it out somehow, and you came after me together."

"It was a team effort in just about every sense of the word." Mac shared a glance with Diane, one that was surprisingly pure in origin. "Who else would you expect to have your back, after all?"

Harm only shook his head. "I'm not sure I deserve either of you, much less both." Something about that choice of phrase struck him as wrong, but he was too tired to address it just yet. For now, he could take comfort in the fact that both of them—all of them—were safe.

#

It took most of forty minutes to explain the chain of events to Admiral Chegwidden the next day. Fortunately, they'd already gone through the entire explanation with the Virginia Beach police, and given an abbreviated version to the D.C. Homicide detectives, so by that point the three of them had the story down to an efficient, polished joint briefing.

Their poise wasn't enough to impress the JAG, however. His gaze swept across the trio, meeting each pair of eyes before moving on.

"Lieutenant Schonke, I thought I'd heard it all before from these two, but this has got to be the first time they've dragged someone who was totally uninvolved into one of their misadventures."

Diane stood next to the partners, automatically at attention despite her civilian dress. "There was no dragging necessary, Admiral. When I offered to help Colonel Mackenzie go through the files and we began to get a picture of who the killer was, I had no intention of sitting around and waiting for the situation to resolve itself. So at that point, I was as involved as involved gets."

Chegwidden pinned her with an intimidating stare. "I see. You were helping Colonel Mackenzie go through the files. Because non-JAG personnel are always allowed full access to our files, aren't they, Colonel?"

Mac's lips twitched at the sarcasm in their superior's tone. "That was a breach of protocol, sir, and I apologize for it. I assure you, it won't happen again."

The Admiral pursed his lips. "It had better not. I appreciate the fact that a greater good was served, but from now on, let's try to keep things a little more orderly around here, shall we?" His eyes swept over them, making it clear that this was by no means a request.

"Yes, sir," they chorused.

"All right. Now that we've got that covered, I trust that no one is too worse for wear after last night?"

"We're fine, sir," Harm answered for them, sliding his hand down to cover the bandage on his wrist. "Looking forward to nailing Admiral Rupert at trial."

The Admiral snorted. "Well, Commander Turner will no doubt want to hear all about your intended testimony. Just let him prosecute without standing over his shoulder the whole time." 

Chegwidden rose from his desk and stepped around to address Diane directly. "Lieutenant, I can't say I'm thrilled to discover that you're cut from the same cloth as these two, but all the same, your actions last night were above and beyond the call. I don't have any mechanism to commend you for that since your military status is still a little vague, but hopefully this will do. This morning I put in a call to Admiral Wendland down at Norfolk to, ah, advise him of your situation. He agreed with my assertion that your departure from the Navy occurred under the most unusual of circumstances and was not motivated by any desire to abandon your responsibilities. There will be no charges filed. A letter of reprimand will be added to your file should you choose to reactivate your commission." The Admiral's steely eyes held a hint of amusement. "Admiral Wendland also mentioned that if you decide to come back he has some contacts at Naval Intelligence who would be very interested in talking with you."

Diane found herself temporarily at a loss. In a very short period of time, the pieces of her life had gone from a jumbled mess to something that closely resembled order. There were other pieces to arrange, of course, but this was a far better start than she could have reasonably hoped for.

"Thank you, sir," she said quietly, not sure what else to say. "I'll do my best to deserve everything you've just given me."

"I don't doubt it. Good luck to you. Commander, Colonel, a significant amount of work has been collecting on your desks recently." His tone implied that they'd been neglecting their jobs rather than hunting down a cold killer. A small, wry smile softened the impact. "I know this because I just told Tiner to add to it. The wrongful disposition investigation is being reopened. There are a couple of names that need to be cleared—Master Chief Zonne's among them. Get to it. Dismissed."

"Aye-aye, sir."

Harm turned to Diane as soon as they had filed out of the admiral's office. "Well, that just saved us a lot of paperwork. A letter of reprimand? Granted, it'll be the longest letter of reprimand on record, but once anyone makes their way through the whole explanation, they'll understand the situation." He flashed an encouraging smile at her, which she returned with a tinge of apprehension. He seemed to comprehend, lowering his voice. "That is, assuming the Navy is what you want."

"I'd like to talk to you about that, actually." Diane twisted her hands in front of her. "About—where we go from here, I guess."

"Sure," he said simply, with a fair imitation of nonchalance. "Now?"

"Good a time as any."

He held out a hand toward his office. Diane followed his lead, too wrapped up in what she needed to say to notice Mac slipping back into her own office with a stiffened spine.

Harm sat down on the corner of his desk, waving Diane into the chair in front. "So you've thought about your options some more?" he asked, fixing his gaze on a point somewhere on the far wall.

"I have. And I think I know what I want—actually, I think I knew it before the Admiral got me off the hook, but that does make it a little easier." She paused for a split-second, trying to choose her words, but he misinterpreted the silence.

"Di, maybe this would be a good time for me to say something—"

"I'm going back to the Navy," she interrupted him, anxious to get the statement out before she could reconsider it yet again. "I need to. I've missed it, more than probably anyone but you could imagine. It's what I chose from the beginning, and no matter what's happened over the past six years, that's still the person I want to be. If Naval Intelligence wants me, that's great. If it's something else, then okay. However it works out… I want that life again."

Harm didn't respond, and Diane wondered if he understood his feelings any better than she did at that moment. She gave him a weak smile and continued, "And it's okay, because you were about to tell me that the two of us were never going to work. Weren't you?"

Surprised, he started to deny it, then shook his head and surrendered. "I don't think that was the exact phrase I had in mind."

"Did you have any kind of exact phrase in mind at all?"

"Can we stay on topic here?" Harm tried to grin at her, but it quickly fell away. "Di, you're always going to be beyond special to me. You know that."

"I do, and I'm grateful for it every day. But I'm not the girl who snuck off the grounds for pizza anymore, and you're not the guy who quietly kicked everyone's butts in aerodynamics, either. We both realize that." She paused, daring to meet his eyes. "For a long time, I know you saw me when you looked at her, but now I think the positions may have reversed."

He opened his mouth to contradict her, but she stopped him with a single shake of her head. "I'm not talking about last night. Well, in a way, I am, but not like that. It was only natural for you to assume I was her, then—that was the whole point. But it gave me a glimpse of how you look at her, and now that I've seen that, I can do this."

She stood up and pressed her lips to his in the gentlest of kisses. "Be happy, Harm," she whispered into his ear. "You've long since earned it."

He caught her in a brief embrace and she closed her eyes, letting herself be strengthened by his touch one more time.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

"For what? Giving you company in captivity last night?"

He shook his head. "For completely obliterating my world… and leaving it a far better place than it was when you found it."

After a long moment, Diane stepped back, eyes bright. "Well, I guess I've got some calls to make. Can I trust that you'll give me a full after-action report following your next meaningful conversation with Mac?"

"Get out of here," he grumbled good-naturedly, watching her leave with a wistful smile. "Hey, before you go—there was one more thing you asked for my help on when you first showed up. I just want to make sure you know that, whenever you want to do that, I'll be here."

She glanced down for a second, comprehending, and nodded. "Thank you. I'll call. As soon as I'm ready, I'll call you."

#

After Diane's departure, Harm leaned back in his chair and stared blankly at the wall. His mind wandered through memories—first of Diane, then Mac. His memories of Diane had always been filled with a sense of... incompleteness. He thought it was because of her death, because a piece of his heart had been ripped away. But getting Diane back hadn't healed that hole, he realized now—and her death hadn't caused it in the first place. That part of him had always been empty.

Until he met Mac. Somewhere between Red Rock Mesa and the Russian taiga she'd slipped into his heart, completing him. But he hadn't realized it. He'd been foolish enough to mistake the memory of that aching hole for the real thing. 

Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair, searching for a way to open this all-important dialogue with Mac. At last, he decided to stop stalling and just wing it. It had to come out somehow, and it couldn't be any worse than some of their previous attempts.

Bracing himself, he rose to his feet. He strode purposefully across the bullpen and opened her door, expecting to hear her chide him for not knocking first. Instead, he found her lamp turned off, her computer powered down, and her briefcase and cover gone.


	13. 13

Chapter 13

Sturgis Turner was surprised to hear a knock on his door just after 2100 hours. He didn't often have evening visitors—not while Bobbi was off campaigning, at least. He rose from his seat on the couch, setting aside the file he was reading, and went to answer the door.

Mac stood in the doorway, looking like her entire world had been ripped away. His stomach clenched with apprehension.

"I need a drink," she said before he could react, her voice flat. The she drew a shuddering breath. "I didn't know where else to go—who I could go to." Her eyes pleaded with him.

Sturgis stepped back immediately, inviting her inside with a wave. He'd been raised to never turn away someone who needed help, and if Mac was having real trouble resisting a drink, she definitely fell into that category. 

"Where's Harm?" he asked once she was far enough inside to allow the door to swing shut behind her.

Mac wrapped her arms around herself, fingers knotting in the sleeves of her jacket. "With Diane." She didn't look at him.

Sturgis didn't need any further explanation. Though he'd been on the far side of the bullpen, he'd seen the trio split after coming out of the Admiral's office, and later seen the gentle embrace Harm had given Diane before she left. For Sturgis, the situation was especially difficult, because he considered both women his friends and he wouldn't presume to judge which relationship was the "right" one.

He kept his thoughts to himself. Right now, Mac needed a sympathetic shoulder. "I was just going over some notes on the Vuarez court martial," he told her. "But I could use a break. Would you like something to eat?"

She shook her head. 

"How about a drink then?" When she looked at him, he added, "Of the non-alcoholic variety, of course."

Her answering smile was wan but genuine. "Okay." 

He fetched two glasses of iced tea from the kitchen, and when he returned he found Mac seated on the edge of the sofa, elbows on knees with her hands hanging limply between. Her head was bowed, her hair falling forward to hide her face. Sturgis felt for her, a deep sadness that threatened to choke him up. He fought it. The last thing Sarah Mackenzie would accept was pity.

"What happened?" He set one glass down on the coffee table in front of Mac, then settled opposite her.

Mac reached out to touch her glass. "Nothing happened, Sturgis. He's always been in love with her." Her breath hitched, sounding suspiciously like a sob. "And, you know what's worse?" She looked up at Sturgis through her bangs, her eyes bright and frantic. 

He slowly shook his head.

"I can't even be happy for him." Mac spread her hands, fingers closing into fists. "I wish Diane had stayed dead! What kind of horrible person does that make me?"

His heart breaking for her, Sturgis moved to sit beside Mac on the couch. She leaned into his embrace without even a token protest, her quiet sobs muffled against his shirt. He sighed.

"You're not a horrible person, Sarah." He stroked her hair in a comforting gesture. "Just human."

#

The next morning the JAG office hummed with its usual activity, but something was distinctly different, Harm thought. For the second time in a week, he got the feeling people were unhappy with him, but this time the entire office seemed to be involved. The few greetings he received as he walked through the bullpen were stiff and unnecessarily formal, and the friendly ribbing he'd come to expect whenever he returned to work after one of his adventures was entirely missing.

He didn't spend much time worrying about it, though. He was too consumed with how to talk to Mac. Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—she was already in court. It would have to wait a little longer.

Harm tossed his briefcase onto his desk, plopped his cover down on top of it, and sank into his chair. He'd spent the entire evening trying to figure out how to tell Mac—what? 

__

Just spit it out, Rabb, he chided himself. _How hard can "I love you" be, anyway?_

He snorted. _Yeah, right._

The phone rang then, sparing him any further introspection. He wasn't too terribly surprised to hear Diane's voice on the other end of the line. And, as much as he considered talking to Mac a priority, he still didn't hesitate to call Tiner to secure a few hours of leave. This was too important, too delicate, to push aside for his own reasons. 

Just over an hour later, he was standing on the porch of a home in suburban Baltimore, waiting for the door to open.

Michael Schonke was a slightly built man in his early sixties. His features were kind, and he spoke pleasantly enough, but the loneliness that governed his life became all too apparent after only a few minutes of conversation. His wife's cancer had been swift, which had been fortunate in some ways and terribly cruel in others. He had always been able to share the lingering pain of their daughter's loss with Ellen, but for most of the past year, it had been a burden he'd been forced to bear alone.

This morning, his demeanor showed only surprise at the visitor on his doorstep. "Now this is unexpected," he said pleasantly, shaking Harm's hand firmly.

"Hi, Mike." Harm greeted him with a warm smile. "Sorry to drop in on you so early."

"Well, I appreciate the visit, but I know this isn't on your morning commute." Mike's eyes held a hint of caution as he sized up the younger man, realizing at once that there was solemn business of some sort to be conducted. "Come on in, Harm."

The house still looked much the same as it had the last time Harm had been there, too long ago to recall. The two men had never been particularly close, but they shared a unique kind of pain that had bound them together. Mike poured him a cup of coffee without a word, and they sat down in the living room.

"I'm going to assume that you didn't drive all the way out here just to check in on me."

"You assume right. Although it's good to see that you're doing well." Harm took a sip of his coffee, trying to make himself relax.

" 'Well' is a relative term, but thanks." Mike leaned forward in his chair. "You haven't been this tense since Di first brought you around here, nigh onto forever ago. What's going on?"

Harm sighed. "I got some news recently, and I don't know how to spring it on you."

"About Diane?" When he nodded, Mike didn't flinch. "I don't think there's anything left for you to say that could make it better or worse. You're not going to scare me into cardiac arrest, if that's what you're worried about. My heart's as strong as ever."

"I can see that." Harm offered a small smile. "But I can guarantee that this is going to shock you. It shocked the hell out of me, and I thought nothing could get to me anymore. It's going to take a long time to fully explain, but there's no way to ease into this one."

Mike gave him a wary stare before nodding slowly. "I guess you'd better just tell me then."

Harm took a deep breath. "Your daughter is alive."

At once, all the color rushed away from the older man's face. He quickly put down his coffee cup before his trembling hand could spill it. Harm charged ahead, hoping to answer the inevitable questions before they could be asked. "Nothing beyond that has been a lie. She really was shot by the XO of her ship because she tried to report him. But the National Security Agency needed her skills for a very difficult and very important assignment, and they set this ruse in motion before she had a chance to do anything about it. Now she's finished her mission with the NSA, and she's come home to rejoin her life."

Mike just stared at him, clearly disbelieving. "She wouldn't do that," he stated, in a controlled voice. "That's not who she was. She wouldn't let us be hurt like that…"

"Mike, I've seen her," Harm said quietly, holding his gaze. "It's real. She came to me for help getting her life back in order. And she asked me to come talk to you because she can't stand the idea of hurting you any more."

Diane's father rose hurriedly from his chair, turning away. "How can that be?" he whispered. "Six years without a word to her own parents? To you? She couldn't come back to say goodbye to her mother? Ellen died believing a _lie_?"

"She didn't know about Ellen until it was too late. I think that's part of the reason she decided to come home now." It pained Harm to feel the man's veiled anger. He remembered all too well how cold he had been to her when she had begged his forgiveness, and a daughter's betrayal was far deeper than any friend's could ever be. "You have every right to be angry. I was, and I guess in some way I still am. But I'm trying to be angry at the situation, not at her. She put the good of the country first, the way we were taught, and because of her work, a lot of sons and daughters who defend American interests in Asia will be safer. You're never going to be able to get back those lost years, and she hates that as much as you do. But you have today, and tomorrow, and all this time you never thought you'd get… and it all starts the moment you let her back in. I'm not going to push you, but she's ready as soon as you are."

Mike turned back around, a faint ray of hope evident in his expression. "Where is she now?"

"Outside in the car," Harm replied with a gentle smile. "She wanted me to ease you into it, and she was afraid you might not want to see her right away."

"Not want to see her? After all this time, how could I not… Diane!" He started toward the door, then halted, catching a glimpse of himself in the hallway mirror. "She's going to think I've given up on myself. I look ancient."

"You do not, and I don't think she'd care if you did." Harm stood up and laid a hand on the older man's arm. "Relax. It's going to be fine."

"What am I even going to say to her?" Mike asked, nearly inaudibly.

"It doesn't matter. But it's been six years since she's heard 'I love you,' so that might be a good start. Wait here." Harm stepped outside and went back to his car, opening the passenger door. Diane climbed out, looking up at him anxiously. He squeezed her hand in reassurance.

When she turned toward the door, and her father saw with his own eyes that his little girl was alive and safe, it shattered every reservoir of self-control he'd ever had. Michael Schonke broke down in wracking sobs on his front porch, utterly overwhelmed by the sudden and complete restoration of his soul.

"Dad," Diane breathed, running up the steps to fall into his arms. "Daddy, I'm sorry… I'm so sorry for all of this…"

"It's really you," he managed to say, clutching her tightly. "My baby… Di, I love you—I love you so much!"

Her tears spilled over, and she buried her face in his chest. "I love you, too," she sniffled, clinging to him and remembering instantly how her father's presence had always been able to make the world right. "We're going to be okay, you hear me? I don't care what I have to do, but from now on we're a family again."

"That's all I need, sweetheart." He kissed her forehead and looked up at Harm with immense gratitude. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he answered softly, carefully keeping his own emotions in check. Witnessing that reunion would have melted even the hardest of hearts, but for him it was a far more personal experience. Two people who had been absolutely alone, who had made difficult choices and suffered by them, who were now willing to put all else aside and reestablish their bond…

In some inexplicable way, it made something clear to him. He knew now what he needed to do and say.

"It's probably time for me to hit the road," he remarked, fishing for his keys. "There's something I still have to do today."

Diane raised her shining eyes to his. "I'll give you a call when I get things sorted out with the Navy," she promised.

He smiled. "I'll hold you to that. If you need anything, you know where to find me, all right?"

She blew him a kiss as he climbed into his car, and watched as the Vette faded from view. Then father and daughter walked into the house hand in hand, ready to begin anew.


	14. 14

Chapter 14

Mac looked up from her conversation with Bud and Harriet with a sinking sense of dread to see Harm push through the doors leading into the bullpen. She'd been grateful, in a strange and painful sort of way, to discover that he'd left to spend some time with Diane. She'd been hoping to avoid seeing him, at least for today. She wasn't at all sure she'd be able to keep her emotions off her face if she had to talk to him.

"Excuse me," she told the two lieutenants quickly, cutting Bud off mid-sentence. She flashed him look of apology then spun away, retreating toward her office as fast as dignity would allow.

"Hey, Mac! You got a minute?" Harm's voice froze her in her tracks.

Stiffening, she turned to face him. He was headed toward her with a determined spring to his step, and Mac knew instantly that he wanted to talk about something personal. She could read it in his eyes.

__

I can't do this right now, she thought, panicked. "No, Commander, I'm sorry. I don't." And before he could do more than gape at her in surprise, she turned on her heel and left.

When she reached the relative safety of her office, she closed the door behind her, then leaned her hands on the desk and tried to force herself to breathe normally. She straightened a moment later as the door opened, her heart clenching. She didn't need to look to know who it was. She could feel him standing behind her, his presence like an electrical thrill across her skin.

Some of the raging hurt she felt tore free at his intrusion. "Would it really be too much to ask for you to _knock_ before barging into my office, Harm?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him recoil at her tone. "Mac? Are you all right?"

The loaded question nearly shattered her composure. She laughed raggedly, the sound emerging as a groan. "Go away, Harm."

His response was predictable. "I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's wrong."

Mac closed her eyes. _Insufferable, stubborn man._ If he stayed any longer, she was afraid she would either bawl or start screaming. 

"I don't want to talk about it. Now if you'll excuse me—" 

"Not until you tell me what's wrong."

Grimacing, she did the only thing she could think of. "Dismissed, Commander."

"Mac—"

"I said _dismissed_," she snapped, pouring every ounce of military bearing she had left into the words.

The silence stretched thunderously, but then she heard the rustle of cloth, the creak of shoe leather, as he snapped to attention. "Aye, ma'am."

Mac waited until his footsteps had retreated before allowing herself to release her pent up breath in a shaky sigh.

#

Sturgis and Bud both paused, startled, as Harm stormed into the commander's office. Harm was vaguely aware that he was interrupting, but he didn't care. 

"Do either of you know what's wrong with Mac?" he demanded.

The two officers exchanged a look.

"Why? Did she say something?" Sturgis asked after a moment.

Harm crossed his arms over his chest. "No, she's refusing to speak to me." He felt like he'd walked into the Twilight Zone. For the first time in his life, he was truly ready to lay everything out on the table and tell the woman of his dreams exactly how he felt about her—and she, inexplicably, was unwilling to give him the time of day.

"Um, sir?" Bud waited for Harm to focus on him before continuing, "Can you really blame her?"

"Harm—" Sturgis' voice was the essence of reason. "Mac just needs a little time to adjust to the situation."

Harm stared at them both. "What situation?" 

Bud gave him an incredulous look. "You and Diane, sir."

Resisting the temptation to grab the lieutenant and shake him, Harm forced out through gritted teeth, "What _about_ me and Diane?"

Bud was starting to look uncomfortable. "Er... you and Diane... together. Sir."

The pieces clicked into place all at once and left Harm flabbergasted. "Whoa. Back up. Who ever said that Diane and I were together?" He pinned both men with an accusing gaze.

Sturgis and Bud exchanged another look, this one of dismay.

"Mac did," Sturgis finally answered. "Should I take this to mean—?" 

"Diane and I are just friends." Harm was painfully aware of the irony in that statement. "And we'll never be anything else. That part of our lives is in the past." Then the full import of what Sturgis had said finally hit him. "Wait a minute—Why would Mac think anything different?"

Bud slowly shook his head. "I hate to say it, sir, but I think everyone had the same impression." 

For a moment, Harm recalled the look on Harriet's face during their last conversation on this topic—the anger and disappointment in her eyes—and he realized it was true. He turned to Bud.

"Why?"

He could see Bud composing his thoughts. "Permission to speak freely, sir?"

Harm nodded, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose as he did so. He had the feeling he wasn't going to like what Bud had to say.

"It only took a couple of months... after Colonel Mackenzie was assigned here... for everyone to realize you and she were a really good fit." A crooked smile lit Bud's face. "For a while there was even a pool going as to when you two would get together." He met Harm's startled gaze and shrugged. "But after six years and—well, everything that's happened during them—I guess people finally came to the conclusion that there must be some reason it was never going to happen. Then Diane showed up, and it just seemed obvious that _she _must be the reason."

Harm stared at his friend as the words slowly sank in. "You know what the scary part is, Bud?"

The lieutenant shook his head.

"She _was_ the reason. I didn't realize it, but she was. It took seeing her again to put everything into perspective." 

Bud looked a little surprised at his admission. Sturgis remained inscrutable as he shuffled the papers on his desk. "I'm sure Mac will be glad to hear that."

Harm snorted at his droll tone. As with any good lawyers, the more tender facts of this case were known to all, but remained unspoken. "Yeah, if I can get her to listen to me long enough to tell her."

#

Mac tensed as soon as she heard the doorknob turn. There was no one else who could possibly have both the persistence and the audacity to barge uninvited into her office _twice_. "Don't take another step, Commander," she warned before his head even appeared around the door.

Harm ignored her, coming to stand in front of her desk with an expression she'd become very familiar with over the years. It was his closing argument 'game face,' and the determination he normally conveyed to a nine-member jury was now focused entirely on her.

"Are you going to call security to have me removed? That's the only way I'm leaving before I finish this."

She forced herself to meet his gaze, beginning to resent his insistence. What did he want from her? Permission to live happily ever after? Did he honestly have no idea what this was doing to her?

"What is there to finish, Harm?" she asked, her voice tired.

"A hell of a lot more than you realize. I finally dragged some information out of some of our coworkers, and it seems that everybody around here has a fundamental misconception about Diane and me. I think I've been unknowingly contributing to it, and that's going to stop right now."

Sensing that she was trapped, Mac decided to play along. She leaned back in her chair, pretending nonchalance. "Okay, what's the misconception?"

"That there is such a thing as 'Diane and me.' There isn't. We're friends, and we're always going to be friends. Nothing more."

Mac stared. He looked so sincere, and yet she couldn't possibly believe him. "Harm, I'm not going to try and get between the two of you." The words tasted awful in her mouth, and she drew on all of her strength to continue, "There's so much there that I know nothing about—"

He flashed her a look of pure frustration. "Mac, you're not listening. Di's reactivating her commission. She wants to join up with Naval Intelligence and put her experience to work. When I left here this morning, it wasn't to go off and start something with her. It was to take her home to see her father. I'm not with her, and I don't want to be. What do I have to do to convince you of that?"

Mac shook her head numbly, standing up from her desk. "I think _you_ believe that, Harm, but that doesn't make it true. You two have so much history together... Could you really tell me that you're never again going to look at her and wonder about what might have been?" She met his defiant stare. "I'm not going to compete with that."

"You don't have to. There aren't any questions any more." 

Mac summoned every ounce of skepticism she could find to drown out the sudden hope that flared in her heart. "Can you guarantee that?"

"Yes!"

She bit her lip. "How?"

Harm threw his hands up. "Because she isn't the one I'm in love with!"

Mac stood very still, trying not to flinch under the intensity of his gaze. She couldn't breathe. If he really meant that... "Then, by extension, am I to assume there's someone else you're in love with?" she asked carefully.

Anger flashed in his gaze. "You don't have to assume a damned thing. I'll say it flat out."

Mac's heart sank. She sighed. "No, you won't," she said quietly. "Not here, in this office, and once we lose this moment I sincerely doubt we'll get it back. We never do."

A flash of panic flickered through Harm's ever-changing eyes, and she began to turn away from him, recognizing the all too familiar beginnings of a retreat.

"Oh no you don't." Without warning, he seized her wrist and headed toward the door. "Come on."

Thoroughly confused, she didn't resist as he dragged her through the bullpen. When she caught sight of the staff members gaping at them, though, some memory of propriety surfaced, and she straightened. "Harm, what in the– "

His voice was sharp. "Don't argue with me, Marine."

Unable to overcome her shock enough to protest, Mac allowed herself to be dragged after him.

#

No sooner had the doors closed behind the two officers than Harriet rushed toward Commander Turner's office, skidding to a halt in the doorway. "Something's happening," she told her husband and Sturgis breathlessly.

The two lawyers looked up with frowns. "What kind of something?"

"_Something_ something." Harriet couldn't help her huge grin. "Come see."

#

Outside the building, Mac had given up on trying to decipher her partner's intentions. As much as she wanted to dig in her heels and demand an explanation, she hesitated to resist. Given his current level of resolve and the vise grip he had on her wrist, fighting with him would only have drawn more attention. She could only follow along for the time being and hope he hadn't wandered completely off the deep end.

"Sergeant," Harm called to the gate guard as they approached the guard shack.

The Marine sergeant snapped to attention, giving no indication that he saw anything odd about the situation. "Sir!"

"Where is the property line for this building?"

"I'm sorry, sir?"

"We don't have a fence, so it stands to reason that somewhere beyond this checkpoint there is a line that separates federal property from the city of Falls Church. I want to know where it is."

The sergeant didn't blink. "Approximately thirty yards out, sir. Just beyond the second oak."

"Thank you, Sergeant. Carry on." Harm took off at a brisk pace, forcing Mac to trot to keep up. When they reached the point in question, he stopped abruptly and swiveled to face her. 

"So, have we lost the moment yet?"

"What?"

"You made a good point about not having this conversation in the office. However, we're no longer on the grounds, so I'm theorizing that I can avoid a conduct unbecoming charge for doing this. Wish me luck." Then, before she had a chance to formulate a response, he pulled her in by her wrist. His other arm snaked around her waist, fingers splayed across her back as he brought her body flush with his. She felt every point of contact like the touch of a live wire as he bent down and delivered a stunning kiss.

When he pulled back, a fire raged behind his eyes. "I love you," he stated clearly, making her heart soar. "Not Diane or anybody else. I won't deny that for a long time she was the reason I held back, but it wasn't because I loved her. It was because I didn't know whether or not I loved her. I know that doesn't make much sense, but when she came back, I realized that she couldn't make me feel whole, and that the only person who could do that is standing right in front of me."

Tears brimmed in Mac's eyes as she recognized the truth in his words. "Harm– "

"I'm serious, Mac. When Rupert brought her in, I was sure it was you, and I was terrified for you. Di saw that—I mean _really_ saw it—and she understands that what I feel for you is so much more than anything she and I ever had. So if she believes it, there's got to be some way I can make you believe it, too, and I'm telling you here and now that I'm going to keep trying until—"

"_Harm_."

"What?"

"I love you, too." At his sudden, joyful comprehension, her earnest expression dissolved into a grin. "You need to learn to quit while you're ahead." She reached up and pulled his head down to meet her lips. He immediately drew her in, melding them together.

#

On the steps of JAG Headquarters, a half-dozen people were squinting out at the two figures across the parking lot, trying to get a good look. Tiner hurried out of the building with a pair of binoculars in hand. 

"Found 'em!" he panted triumphantly. Harriet immediately snatched them away.

"Lieutenant," Admiral Chegwidden commented mildly from the step behind her. "Is that really an accepted use of Navy property?" 

Harriet looked abashed and placed the binoculars in his outstretched hand. "Sorry, sir."

"Damn right." Chegwidden smiled as he lifted them to his eyes. "Admiral's privilege."

A low hum of conversation, broken by laughter, ran through the group. Even at that distance, it was obvious what the two officers were doing.

A.J. pulled the binoculars away with a snort. "Someone had better put a stop to this before we have to call the fire department," he muttered. 

Handing the binoculars to Harriet, he set out across the parking lot.

Epilogue

Diane puttered around her San Diego apartment, humming to herself as she cleaned. The last year had seen so many fundamental changes in her life, but she was happier now than she could ever remember. Her work was challenging, her personal life full. Just being able to visit her father—go to an Orioles game from time to time—brought her tremendous joy.

A rap at her door interrupted her thoughts. She went to answer it, and was thoroughly surprised to find Harm standing on the other side.

"Surprise," he said with a grin.

"Harm!" Delighted, she wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him tight. Then she stepped back, inviting him in. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm on an investigation at Camp Pendleton, but I decided to take the opportunity to visit my Mom and Frank while I was here, and you're just around the corner from them, so—" He shrugged.

"Well, I'm glad you did." She eyed him critically, certain she knew the reason for the fundamental change she read in his face. "You look great."

He glanced down at his toes, abashed. "Thanks. You, too."

Diane tucked her hands behind her back self-consciously. "So, did you bring me wedding pictures?" She'd been deployed at the time and couldn't attend, which she figured was probably a good thing. 

Harm reached into his coat pocket, emerging with a white envelope that looked to be stuffed with photos. "Of course." He handed them over.

Diane quickly settled on the couch, pictures in hand. Harm came and sat next to her as she flipped through the stack. The gold band on his left hand glinted softly as he moved, evoking a tiny pang of regret. Not because she resented his relationship with Mac, but simply because of what they might have had if things had been different. 

The thought faded quickly as she studied the radiant couple smiling out at her from the photograph. No, this was how it was supposed to be. She looked up at Harm.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but does Mac know you're here?"

He flashed an amused grin. "Of course. She said to tell you hi."

Diane straightened the stack of photographs and returned them to their envelope. "Here's a bit of irony for you."

He quirked an eyebrow and waited.

She grinned. "I'm dating a pilot." At his look, she added, "Hey, if you can marry a woman who looks just like me, I can date a Tomcat pilot."

He chuckled and looked away. "Fair enough. What squadron?"

"He's a Top Gun instructor, actually."

That brought forth full-blown laughter. "Lucky man."

"I like to think so."

Their humor died quickly, replaced by stilted silence. Harm rose. "Well, I should go. I just wanted to stop by and... see how you were doing."

She touched his arm. "You don't have to worry about me, Harm," she told him gently. She stood up so she could look into his eyes as she spoke. He needed to know her words were true, and maybe she did as well. "I'm happy with my life." Somehow her hands found his. His grip was warm and comforting, but no sudden spark flared to life inside her at his touch.

He watched her for a moment longer, then bent to kiss her on the cheek. "I'm glad, Di."

She smiled fondly at him as she walked him to the door. "It was good to see you, Harm."

He echoed the expression. "You, too." Then, with a last grin, he was gone. 

Diane closed the door behind him with a sense of closure. She doubted she would see him again for some time, but that was all right. Their past had become a stepping stone to separate futures, both of them bright. And what else, she thought, were friends for but to help each other through the rough times, and to see that they found the happiness they so richly deserved?

"Goodbye, Harm," she said to the blank door. Then, smiling softly, she turned away. 

*** THE END ***


End file.
